Housing in the Philippines

Human Rights Dialogue 1.11 (Summer 1998) "Toward a "Social Foreign Policy" with Asia"

CORAZON SOLIMAN, SHYAMA VENKATESWAR | JUNE 5, 1998

The following is a summary of the breakout group on housing, as reported by Shyama Venkateswar,

Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs

Moderator Corazon Soliman (Community Organization Training and Research Advocacy Institute)

initiated the discussion by asking the American and Asian participants to share their views on what they

felt were some of the barriers to adequate housing for citizens on both sides of the Pacific. Although the

participants represented countries with different levels of economic development and political regime

types, they agreed on the existence of a common set of barriers.

In the United States as well as in Asian countries, a major issue is the scarcity of affordable housing and

access to credit. Even when housing is available, the prohibitive costs of renting or purchasing and the

lack of easy access to mortgage or lending systems place decent housing beyond the reach of ordinary

citizens.

A second barrier is the insecurity of tenure and property rights. Both Soliman and Kenneth Fernandes

(Asian Coalition for Housing Rights) raised the issue of how in Southeast Asia the lack of secure titles and

the prevalence of informal ties to land often result in eviction. Without proper documentation of

ownership, those evicted, usually the poor and the marginalized, have no recourse to the law.

The American participants were divided over the value of having property rights set within a clearly

defined legal system. While some participants commented that a tight legal structure was simply a way

to tax and charge citizens during the transfer of property or the closing of a transaction, others, like

Harold O. Wilson (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) argued that a formal legal structure supported

by the state was necessary in order for the state to provide affordable housing to low-income groups.

This led to a discussion of a third category of barriers connected to the role of government:

overregulation and bureaucratic rigidity. Some participants expressed the need for government

involvement in the provision of infrastructural necessities like sewage, water, and the like; others argued

that the involvement of government often led to abuse and corruption. Participants from the United

States and Asia identified instances where government involvement often hurt ordinary citizens. Wilson

gave an example of communities on the U.S.-Mexico border that are unable to afford to build their

houses because of the stringency of building codes in the area. As an example of bureaucratic rigidity in

Asia, Fernandes mentioned that many of the standards in place in Asian countries are designed by

Western-trained bureaucrats and planners, who appropriate laws that are wholly incompatible with

local conditions. Fernandes brought up the case of Karachi, another example of government

involvement, where only 5 to 8 percent of the government-sponsored housing projects were occupied

by low-income groups, with the rest occupied by middle-income groups who bought their property on

speculation.

Class, race, age, and gender discrimination pose another set of barriers. Tom Jones (Habitat for

Humanity International) noted that even in the United States, where there is a willingness to help find

affordable housing for people of different cultures, races, and classes, there is still a general attitude of

NIMBY (not in my backyard). In other words, supporting the idea of housing for all is fine in theory, but it

is difficult to implement such plans. People are reluctant to integrate and share neighborhoods with

those from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds.

The group turned to the question of finding common solutions for the housing crisis on both sides of the

Pacific, and specifically to the means of providing affordable housing for all citizens in both rural and

urban communities. A common thread was the need to empower ordinary citizens by organizing them,

thereby giving them the opportunity to engage with policymakers and planners in decisions regarding

their neighborhoods and communities. Lawrence Chickering (International Center for Economic Growth)

gave examples of housing initiatives that his organization has led in California. By organizing tenants to

create self-governed organizations in public housing projects, the NGO was able to turn dysfunctional

crime-ridden communities into productive communities with less crime and fewer racial tensions.

Citing another example, Wilson described a successful initiative in Honduras in the 1960s. A housing

foundation started giving small, starter loans to squatter communities with the stipulation that the loans

be repaid. The foundation also help form cooperatives, NGOs, and credit unions to serve those

particular areas of the community. The key, according to Wilson, was organizing communities. Once that

had been achieved, the loans were repaid, and soon afterward the shanty towns constructed from

cardboard had been replaced by concrete and cement structures.

Soliman asserted that it is important for Asians and Americans to work with their governments in

planning and developing communities. She gave the example of the Philippines, where NGO groups

advocating for housing rights actively search out planners and technocrats to elicit from them ideas

about how to develop communities. She cited a land-sharing agreement in Bangkok, in which slum

dwellers had negotiated with the government and the monarch to divide the land on which they

squatted; a portion of it was used by the crown property to build commercial buildings where business

was conducted, and the rest was used by the people to design houses for themselves. Institutionalizing

that kind of interaction, Soliman argued, helps cities to move in the direction of being “people-owned”

rather than “planner-owned” or “government-owned.” However, she cautioned that these attempts in

Asia tend to be more successful in secondary cities, as opposed to megacities like Metro Manila and

Bangkok.

All the participants agreed that this work could not be accomplished by the NGO and nonprofit

communities alone. It is essential that local community organizations and housing advocacy groups work

in close cooperation with the relevant branches of government to find solutions to the housing crisis and

to build sustainable communities. Jones and Fernandes offered concrete examples of such successful

collaborations in the United States and in Cambodia, respectively.

Although ownership is construed in different ways—in the United States, in a legal manner and in Asia,

more informally—the participants stressed that giving people property rights and secure titles to land

would result in their being able to use the property as collateral, to invest time and energy in their

communities, and to become politically active in demanding local schools, roads, and hospitals. In their

personal experiences, these participants had found that providing secure titles and soft loans motivated

people to create and build their communities according to their own definition of quality of life rather

than that of government bureaucrats and elite planners.

The group also discussed the role of intermediary institutions like the U.S. community development

corporations (CDCs) at the community, city, and international levels that determine policies in

cooperation with city planners. In this context, the participants noted the value of intermediary

national-level groups that help to aggregate resources for community-based organizations and train

them in advocacy. By amassing funds for low-income and disenfranchised people and bringing together

those who own capital and those who own land, CDCs help people to build their houses, organize, and

empower themselves. Wilson brought up the Self-Help Housing Program as a model in place in rural

America. Under this program, the Department of Agriculture makes grants to CDCs to organize families

to construct their own houses through low-interest loans.

Underlying the discussion of barriers and solutions to the housing problem is the notion that housing is

not simply a matter of building concrete structures or infrastructure, but is intrinsically a social and

human problem that relates to the empowerment of local communities. Related to this are two

questions on democratic values: What is the common good and who defines it? What is the optimal way

in which governments can be involved in regulations so that the common good can be preserved? The

idea of people-centered solutions to housing problems highlights the importance of people’s access to

and control of their own resources, and their ability to participate in larger decision-making processes

that relate to their lives. Finally, building decent homes and communities is strongly linked to creating

economic value for the families living in them. The participants concurred that focusing on housing

development is the first step in generating economic development in rural and urban areas in the United

States and Asia.