Housing Struggles World Wide

Some updates and news from activities in Calais, from the various squats in the area and police repression against migrants and supporters. read more

I collect images of the sex industry, as part of a project to educate myself and others about the diversity actually involved, rather than staying with an oversimplified, unilluminating idea about prostitution. A lot of my picture collection can be seen here. The silent video below from Satoshi shows streets in a Yokohama red-light district with rows of small shops or cubicles used for sex work. Similar arrangements of sheds or ‘cribs’ were called chon-no-ma, and, until fairly recently, were open and staffed by non-Japanese women. Chon-no-ma were the target of anti-trafficking drives from about five years ago.

A few things strike me about this display. First, the silent, steady, slow movement of the camera. Second, the similarity of the windows and doors we’re taken past, like suburban shopping strips developers impose a style on. Third, the absence of humans, who would ordinarily be the object of our attention (perhaps the video was made in the early dawn). The result is mesmerising.

Affordable Housing becomes Green with hemp

Entering the housing market is not only a challenge for first time buyers, but also for conscious consumers wanting to take care of the environment without spending a fortune.

With now legal industrial hemp licenses available in many countries around the world, Growing Your Own Home has never been easier!

According to long-time industrial hemp expert Paul Benhaim, “just one acre of land is enough for you to grow a crop of hemp that can be converted to a regular looking building on that same piece of land”. He goes on to say “and we are not talking rustic homes, but regular looking solid council approved buildings”.

These new eco friendly buildings are built by regular builders, and don’t require specialist designs, though the developers recommend solar passive designs that take advantage of the thermal mass offered by the hemp walls. As well as residential and commercial projects, simple renovations are possible.

Until now you had to import materials to be sure of a standard building product. Previous versions of similar technologies commonly known as ‘hemcrete’ or ‘hempcrete’ have also required processing of hemp in large factories. Hence this technology has not been fully sustainable, until now.

This new technology developed over 10 years by Klara Marosszeky allows simple harvesting of hemp that makes use of the whole stalk to create a building material that has excellent rodents, fire and insulation properties. Although an option, no rendering or finishing is required (you can colour through the mix) and all local materials can be used in what is becoming the leader in the latest trend in environmentally friendly building techniques.

Klara is currently hoping for a project to see some genuine and direct outcomes for the Indigenous people of Australia in regards to Affordable 'home grown' housing. South Africa and Trinidad have also showed interest in this technology.

Klara Marosszeky and Paul Benhaim are about to launch their findings in a new book on Building with Hemp which includes a detailed construction manual. To support professional builders, self-builders, renovators and eco enthusiasts Klara and Paul will personally share this technique at workshops around the world in 2011. A one-off special preview workshop will be launched in Byron Bay, Australia on September 4th 2010.

Some Khayelitsha residents have to pay up to R10 each time they want to use the toilets at their neighbours' homes because they don't have their own ablution facilities.

Residents in QQ Section in Site B, who live in shacks, fork out between 50c and R10 to their neighbours who live in formal houses.

In another section of the city's sprawling township, Site C, residents have to relieve themselves on a stretch of grass in full view of passing cars on the N2.

There are toilets nearby in Site C, but some of these are locked by individual residents who hold the keys, while others are broken, damaged or overflowing with human waste.

Using the stretch of grass as a toilet is dangerous: residents say that they are mugged as they walk to the area. One man was stabbed in the face and robbed of his cellphone earlier this year.

When the Cape Argus visited the area this week, human faeces littered the grassy area and the stench was overpowering.

It is not only adults who use the field as a toilet. Parents fear that their children are risking their lives.

Residents who use the area regularly said they had few options because the closest toilets were too far from their homes.

Some said they walked to a neighbouring area in Site C to use toilets provided by the City of Cape Town.

Thokoza Thulumani, who accompanied her two young daughters when they needed to use the grassy patch, said she "did not feel right" about using the field.

"Sometimes these little children want to run into the street (the N2); it's not safe for them," she said.

Mzimasi Kese, 31, said "having to go" in the open made him "feel bad".

"I don't feel right because so many people driving past in their cars can see you going."

Kese said sometimes people brought toilet paper while others used newspaper which they softened by rubbing.

There are 12 concrete flush toilets in Site C.

About six of these are locked and others have been vandalised or are blocked and have plumbing defects.

Nomfusi Jezile, who uses these toilets, said the keys to the locked toilets were kept by some residents and could be obtained when requested.

"It's better when they keep the keys because the toilets are cleaner and the children can't play in them," she said.

Ward councillor Nontsomi Billie said the city had the toilets for the area, but that there was no land on which to erect them.

She said some people in the area used the portable toilet system.

"If the toilets are not enough, they (the residents) should tell the street committee members who report it to me and I contact the city and processes are put in place," she said.

Residents in Site B's QQ section, who have been paying their neighbours in Q Section to use their outdoor toilets, said there were no toilets in QQ Section. They said they had been paying anything from 50c to R10 for about the past three years.

Steven Mhaga, who lives in QQ Section, said he always used the same toilet and regularly had to fork out 50c.

He said he had been told that the reason for the fee was to contribute to water and electricity.

QQ Section's Dumisani Jack also pays 50c.

"It becomes a problem sometimes because I don't always have money, or I can't get a toilet," he said.

Others said they were charged R10. The city's director for the Water and Sanitation Department, Philemon Mashoko, said the city had a monitoring and evaluation team conducting regular checks at all informal
settlements.

He said he was not able to comment on the legality of people renting out toilets. But he added that the city's Water and Sanitation Department would assess the situation. Mashoka said residents in Q Section and QQ Section had refused to accept "porta-potties because they were promised houses".

"The Water and Sanitation Department will investigate the possibility of providing temporary access to sanitation where the units will be placed on the periphery of the area due to availability of space," Mashoka said. Gavin Silber, the co-ordinator of the Social Justice Coalition, said the root of the toilet problem was the housing backlog.

The coalition's research showed that 500 000 people in Cape Town do not have access to basic sanitation. It is estimated that 50 000 people from others parts of the country stream into Cape Town each year, placing an even greater strain on the city's services.

Last year a report commissioned by the city's housing department showed that the backlog increased by 18 000 units each year.

Silber said that in the interim the city should do more to maintain the toilets. "The city needs to recognise its short-comings with sanitation; there needs to be better maintenance and monitoring." He said one the coalition members had been stabbed in May while using a field to relieve himself.

Mayor Dan Plato said the city could not meet the demand for services in informal settlements, citing a problem of "supply and demand".

He explained that in high-density shack settlements there was little room for essential services like access routes or space for toilets.

- Cape Argus

 

 

What has been happening in Greece in the past few months (and in a way, extending from December 2008 to present) is simply phenomenal: deep changes, one after the other, in the social backbone come at breakneck speed. This fluid landscape has found us, the wider social antagonist movement (anarchists, anti-authoritarians, the libertarian left) numb – and worse even stuck with our conceptualisations, our beliefs and readings of social reality as it stood only a little while ago.

But so much has changed, so fast.

Do we possibly have the luxury to dismiss the strike of the lorry-drivers as somewhat “reactionary” or “conservative” because they aim at protecting the reserved benefits of their trade? (it is true that this, along with a few more trades, is one of the so-called “closed” trades, requiring licenses of 200K upward, which often pass on via family, political and other often dubious connections). Can we still keep reading developments in this way? Lorry drivers “are protecting their closed trade”; dockworkers are “driven by the Communist Party”; peach producers “only rise up when their profits sink”. Of course, there is some truth in all these statements. But this is no Colonial India, nor should we ever allow it to come to this… To divide and rule is the oldest trick in the book. Our position as anarchists, as libertarians, as people in the grassroots struggle, must be on the side of those who fight from the grassroots, from the wider working class – with all the past wrong-doings of some of its parts. Our aim, to strengthen their struggle with that powerful bond of solidarity – this, which could ensure that next time they don’t get into another dog-eat-dog situation, that they don’t turn against each other, that their aim is where it truly deserves to be, against state and capital intervention in our lives.

These are unprecedented moments when enormous ruptures open up and where the potentials are high. We either seize the day or let everything and everyone around us crumble fall, one by one._

At this moment, the socialist government of PASOK has just ordered the so-called “civil conscription” of lorry drivers, who have been on strike for a fourth consecutive day. International media described this as an “emergency order”, but it is well worth to look a bit deeper into this measure, as it is now likely that it will concern us time and time again during the forthcoming winter.

(text below shamelessly copied and translated from corporate media)

What is civil conscription?

Civil conscription (politiki epistratefsi) is the conscription of personal services, that is, the compulsory provision of personal services of those conscripted – and it can be called based on Law Decree 17/1974 “Regarding the Political Planning of State of Emergency”. The decree in question states that a state of emergency is every sudden situation caused either by physical or other events or anomalies of every kind and which results in the obstruction and disruption of the country’s financial and social life.

More specifically, article 18 of the 17/1974 Decree allows the civil conscription of personal in the case of their political mobilisation. The Decree was issued before the 1975 Constitution and is [therefore] based upon the Constitution of 1952.

Conscription procedures

Everyone called to offer their services are issued with a “personal invite to political conscription”. The responsibility for the overseeing of this procedure falls with the local prefectures.

Penalties

Refusing to accept the conscription letter has legal consequences. In this case, the emergency court procedure is initiated (autoforo) and those who refuse the letter must be arrested and stand trial. In the case that the recipient of the letter is absent, the letter must be pasted on their front-door and the recipients must be immediately located by the police.

Chronicle of civil conscriptions

- 1979- conscription of bank clerks, as their strike had “paralysed” the banking sector.

- 1983- conscription of the drivers of road tankers.

- 1986- conscription of the flying mechanics of Olympic Airways

- 1994- conscription of the buses of civilians who were co-operating with the Transport Organisation of Athens

- 2002- civil conscription of the striking dockworkers, following the serious problems caused by the isolation of the greek islands

- 2006- civil conscription of the striking dockworkers

http://www.churchland.co.za/default.asp?id=796

People’s Food, People’s Sovereignty (Edition # 6: June, 2010)

From walking and working with groups and communities who struggle for food and for sovereignty in their lives, we know that there are so many people who go to sleep without food – often for three days and more at a time. Our country’s history of violence, conquest and theft undermined the social, political and productive lives of the people. It deliberately attacked the ability of the majority to live their lives to the full and on their own terms. And even after more than 15 years of our so-called ‘democracy’, the masses of the people, especially in rural areas, still struggle for life. Being landless, penniless, jobless, sick and without the resources for farming (which includes access to safe, affordable water) are some of the reasons why these people cannot produce. In this newsletter we share some aspects of these different places and the struggles of the people there. There are many things in common across the different experiences and places.

read more

More than 100 backyard dwellers from various townships slept in the open on a patch of private land in Philippi for the past two nights after the illegal structure they had built was demolished by law enforcement officials for the fourth time.

The land is situated off Stock Road between the R300 and the Joe Gqabi railway station.

The people, who hail from Gugulethu, Philippi and Khayelitsha, among other areas, claim they are entitled to the land because they paid for it by way of a beneficiary trust that was established in 1999.

Margret Gacula, who was a backyard dweller in Gugulethu, said the 853 members of the Vusintshutsha Beneficiary Trust had paid between R25 and R30 a week between 1999 and 2001 into a savings account and that uTshani Fund had bought the land on behalf of the trust in 2002.

"I want to know where the houses are that uTshani said they would build for us with the money we paid them," said Gacula.

Patrick Maghebula, the president of the national Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor, said uTshani had bought the plot on behalf of the SA Homeless People's Federation, which he said had defrauded its members.

"After the land was purchased, the leadership of the SAHPF told its members that uTshani no longer existed and that the transaction had fallen through," said Maghebula.

Patricia Matolengwe, a director of the SAHPF, said she was not prepared to respond to the allegations against the organisation.

"We will only talk to them through our lawyers," she said.

Steve Hayward, the head of Housing and Anti Land Invasion for the City of Cape Town, said there was a deed of sale proving that the land had been bought by the uTshani Fund but uTshani had told the City that nobody was authorised to occupy the land.

"We have been watching the site carefully," he said. "By law nobody can erect any structure, be it in Constantia or in this case in Philippi, without submitting the necessary building plans."

- Cape Argus

Cape Town mayor Dan Plato is to meet Public Enterprises Minster Barbara Hogan to discuss the city's subsidy to Eskom to provide free basic electricity to households, a subsidy that costs the city more than R100-million.

Plato said that, to be fair to all indigent electricity users in Cape Town, the mayoral committee had recommended to the council that the city amend its policy of subsidising Eskom to provide free basic electricity to users in the Eskom supply area of the city.

About one-third of consumers in the metropole, mainly in rural areas, Table View, Khayelitsha and Parklands, buy electricity directly from Eskom, and the rest buy through the city council.

"It is recommended that the city reduce its subsidy to Eskom to provide free basic electricity to Eskom customers who use less than 250 kilowatt hours per month, and not to those who use less than 450kW hours, as it used to do," said Plato.

He said he would meet Hogan to discuss the issue.

"I've asked her to intervene for funding to fill the gap," Plato said.

In the meantime, the city will continue to provide free basic electricity to its own customers who use less than 450kW hours a month.

Plato said Eskom had changed its tariff structure so that domestic customers using more than 150kWh a month were paying significantly less than the equivalent City of Cape Town customers.

"The city therefore needed to review its free basic electricity subsidy to Eskom, so that the city's subsidy to Eskom did not result in Eskom's customers paying less than the city's own customers," he said.

Mayoral committee member for finance Ian Neilson said that all municipalities in the country subsidised Eskom by about two cents per kilowatt.

"Those two cents might not seem like much, but it's around R120-million.

"And the city is one of Eskom's biggest customers and it should be subsidised," Neilson said.

The ANC's Raymond Mrawu said the city should charge a cheaper tariff for everyone.

"I don't know why the city doesn't change. Eskom is more sympathetic to the poorest of the poor.

"It's very important for the city to follow Eskom," Mrawu said.

Cynthia Clayton of the Independent Democrats said electricity had become so expensive that the meter boxes in homes in her area had become like televisions.

"People are watching their boxes more than TV. It's a total rip-off for the poor. We're actually going backwards," Clayton said.

The city's new system slots consumers into a tariff band according to the amount of electricity they buy.

The basic price of electricity increased by an average of 25 percent at the beginning of the month, but several consumers the Cape Times spoke to have found that their bills have increased by 60 to 70 percent.

A pensioner in Gordon's Bay found herself paying 93.31 cents per unit compared to 53.31 cents per unit before the tariff change.

"A unit is equal to 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh).

"I was told by the municipality that if you purchase more units than you normally use, you will be placed in a higher band," she said.

A man in Claremont found himself in a similar situation.

"I would urge all pre-paid users to check their new costs of power, mine increased from 61 cents per unit to 106 cents per unit, a far cry from the 25 to 35 percent announced," he said

"Energy has become more expensive than it used to be and people need to understand that the more they use, the more they will be charged.

"Free basic electricity is still there for lower users," Neilson said.

Neilson said people needed to change their lifestyles and make use of cost-saving measures.

Jolene Henn, Eskom's regional communication and stakeholder manager in the Western Cape, said that all those customers within its electricity supply areas consuming up to 450kWh per month did receive free basic electricity.

"Eskom's direct domestic customers pay less for electricity than the city's, depending on the tariff and consumption level," she said.

- Cape Times

The Western Cape's provincial housing waiting list is as good as non-existent.

This is the view of Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela after the department finished assessing the housing data collection and management systems of 12 non-metro municipalities.

The investigation, which is part of the department's municipal housing demand data improvement programme, found that the systems used were so poor that duplication was common; information supplied by housing applicants could not be verified or checked for accuracy and completeness.

The assessment, the results of which have now been compiled in a report, also found that while municipal housing officials appeared to have adequate capacity to manage housing demand data and the related allocation of houses, municipalities used very basic systems and processes for handling housing registration data.

"This results in the integrity of data being dependent on the proper functioning of manual processes and controls," it said in the report.

These processes and controls had not been properly designed and there were few internal controls in place to ensure that, when selection occurred, the data could be relied on.

Key results for the 12 assessed local municipalities included that:

• Only five municipalities had a council-approved housing policy, another five were working according to a draft policy and two had no policy at all.
• Nine were using registration date to select beneficiaries; two were using a weighted point scale while one was using community profiling.
• In terms of Information Technology used, only two municipalities had an advanced system; three had a "progressed" system (able to control access to the data, but beneficiary selection is performed manually) and the remaining seven had basic systems (no access controls, all data related processes performed manually).
• The report also revealed that only one municipality had system-automated quality control to capture registration information; one other municipality used manual quality controls prior to capturing and the remaining 10 municipalities had no quality controls, meaning duplications and inaccuracies were captured.
• Only two municipalities stored and controlled access to their registration information; a further nine stored but did not control access to their registration data and one retained no documentation.
• Only the name, surname and ID number of applicants were consistently captured across all municipalities, while an address was captured against at least 80 percent of applicants in 11 out of 12 municipalities. The date was captured more than 80 percent of the time in nine out of 12 municipalities, while 50 to 80 percent in one and less than 50 percent in two.

"Considering that registration date is the most common basis for beneficiary selection, this is a concern," it said in the report.

The investigation also found that nearly 10 percent of records captured by the 12 municipalities were duplicates. Four municipalities had five percent or less duplicate records; three had 6-15 percent, four had 16-20 percent and one municipality had 25 percent of records duplicated.

Only six percent of applicants had an unknown application date; 20 percent were registered prior to 1998; 20 percent were registered between 1999 and 2002; while 54 percent have been registered since 2003.

Eighty percent of applicants' ID numbers were valid; two percent had no ID numbers; one percent were not South African residents and the rest had invalid ID numbers.

Madikizela said the findings confirmed the problems he had raised about housing allocation.

"It is fundamentally flawed."

He said loopholes allowed people to get houses when they should not.

- Cape Argus

Cape Town - The Western Cape government is working on an improved system to ensure that the right people benefit from municipal housing, the province's human settlements department said on Thursday.

The department had completed an assessment of the first 12 non-metro municipalities' housing demand data collection and management systems and practices, it said.

While municipal housing officials were able to manage housing demand data and the allocation of houses, the biggest concern was the use of systems and processes for handling housing registration data.

This resulted in the "integrity" of the data being dependent on the proper functioning of manual processes and controls, it said.

Processes and controls

The assessment was part of the department's Municipal Housing Demand Data Improvement Programme.

"Currently, these processes and controls have not been properly designed, agreed and implemented.

"There are few internal controls in place in order to ensure that, when selection occurs, the data can be relied on."

It said that information collected from potential beneficiaries was not being checked for validity, accuracy and completeness.

This meant that there was insufficient information with which to select those who should benefit from municipal housing.

Out of the 12 municipalities assessed, five had a council approved housing beneficiary selection process, five were working according to a draft policy and two had no policies.

In terms of selecting beneficiaries nine municipalities were using registration date order, two were using a weighted point scale and one was using community profiling, it said.

Only name, surname and ID number of applicants were consistently captured across all municipalities, while an address was captured against at least 80% of applicants in 11 out of 12 municipalities.

A date was captured more than 80% of the time in nine out of 12 municipalities, 50 to 80% in one, and less than 50% in two, the department said.

Registration date

"Considering that registration date is the most common basis for beneficiary selection, this is a concern, it said.

"The same applied to other important fields, which may influence whether the applicant qualifies, such as number and details of dependants, marital status, spouse details and income."

A survey of only half of the non-metro municipalities showed that the department needed to develop a support strategy to improve the housing demand data management by municipalities, it said.

In addition, it would develop a standard job description for housing officials to assist municipalities to indicate roles and responsibilities.

Workshops would also be conducted to discuss and agree on the requirements for a standard municipal housing policy.

The department said an assessment of the remaining 12 municipalities outside the City of Cape Town would be completed by the end of next month.

- SAPA

On Wednesday, the PASOK government issued an emergency order against the strike of the lorry drivers. The order (in greek: politiki epistrateusi, i.e. civil conscription)  in theory means that every striking lorry driver will receive a personal letter calling them back to work; disobeying this could result in imprisonment. Also, the political conscription allows the army to intervene and to replace the striking drivers in their duties. This, in turn, means that the army could step in to distribute petrol to gas stations, which have all but completely dried up by today, the fourth day of the strike.

Earlier this morning, a group of striking lorry drivers clashed with the police outside the ministry of Transport in Athens (pic). At this time (14.54 GMT+2) a committee of the strikers is in emergency negotiations with the ministry

Updates will appear here as they come.

http://www.mg.co.za/multimedia/2010-07-28-shackdwellers-left-waiting

Shackdwellers Left Waiting

After eight shacks in Kliptown's Freedom Charter Settlement were illegally torn down by the Jo'burg City Government, residents are still waiting for officials to fulfil their promise to re-build.

Click here to watch this video.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=116211

Volley of factual blanks in war on social grants

STEVEN FRIEDMAN
Published: 2010/07/28 08:08:17 AM

A VERBAL war on people who cannot answer back is not a pretty sight — even when the people waging it are firing factual blanks. Attacks on the social grants, on which the poor rely to blunt poverty’s edge, have become a common pas time among commentators. As a sign of the times, only a few days ago, national radio chose to portray the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s report on our economy as a criticism of grants — despite the fact that the passage it cited to illustrate this was fairly marginal to the analysis.

read more

80 days ago the democracy village set up on parliament square. Now it has gone. After losing the court hearing on 16th July (press release), and sending a call out to stand up for democracy, the eviction started just after 1am on Monday night. The public square was fenced in and democracy out (pics | video), and the two people in D-locks couldn't stop this. No one was arrested, but calls were made for a day of non-violent direct action today and a people's assembly this Saturday 1pm.

See the democracy village newswire at
london.indymedia.org/about/democracy_village

Report

 

read more

read more

Early morning on 27 July, Israeli bulldozers, flanked by helicopters and throngs of police, demolished the entire Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the northern Negev desert. Despite their land rights cases still pending in the court system, hundreds of al-Araqib villagers were instantly made homeless a month after Israeli police posted demolition orders.

More than half of a Mamre low-cost housing project is being retro-fitted with ceilings in an attempt to improve living conditions of residents, and create jobs for locals.

The project includes 400 units, 230 of which will undergo the change, according to the City of Cape Town.

Mayco member for housing, Shehaam Sims, said that thousands of houses in Cape Town were built before the National Housing Subsidy allowed for the inclusion of ceilings.

"A house without a ceiling falls far short of the ideal thermal protection one would like to see in every house. An insulated ceiling is the single most important energy-related upgrade we can make to improve health, quality of life, and reduce people's energy costs," Sims said.

The benefits of fitting ceilings included making homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Because Mamre was situated in a Condensation Problem Area, people without ceilings were prone to health problems related to damp and mould that formed on inside walls.

The project would also achieve some of the city's Energy and Climate Change Plan objectives, according to Marian Nieuwoudt, who chairs the Energy Committee. These included a 10 percent electricity consumption reduction, and local economic development.

Part of the stipulations were that a portion of the work went to unemployed residents. A total of 18 residents received contract work, and had since installed ceilings in their own homes.

Alan Winde, Finance, Economic Development and Tourism MEC, is to investigate whether EPWP (Expanded Public Works Programme) funding can be made available so that the programme can be extended further in the province.

"This is a perfect project for EPWP funds as it will have a positive impact on the lives of low-income people, both through employment creation and the provision of better housing. We are currently investigating whether EPWP funding can be made available for its further roll out," he said. - Cape Argus