Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities - Agence ...

7. Access to Housing: The Main End Goal of Urban Development Policies
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phenomenon. This programme does not only tackle housing, but also speaks of
eradicating poverty and proposes grouped solutions for entire settled communities.
Indeed, not all the households earning less than 3,500 rand per month and living in
informal housing are eligible for the RDP house subsidies. 45 In this way, the programme
proposes improvement projects focusing on given geographic zones. It also
insists heavily on the need to maintain social ties as much as possible by keeping
households in place. Pilot projects have been launched in each region to test these
principles for improving informal housing. This subject is highly controversial because
of the forced re-housing and displacements, and it is still difficult to determine what
impact the programme will have. Although on a different scale, Reunion Island must
face the same challenge. To meet the challenge, the municipalities on Reunion Island
can launch slum clearance operations (SC operations), implemented in the vast
majority of cases by public development companies. These slum clearance operations
consists of drawing the borders of an informal settlement and improving housing
conditions for all the households living within the borders. The project team is
multidisciplinary and includes one or several social affairs agents in charge of meeting
with all the inhabitants and identifying financial possibilities and re-housing desires. In
so far as possible, the households are re-housed, if they wish, on site in social housing
buildings or in progressive social housing (LES). The success of these operations
depends on the dialogue with the inhabitants and the possibility for conserving, even
increasing, diversity and settlement density with buildings. The financing of such
operations, which are by definition not profitable, is covered in part by government
subsidies and also by the municipality.
7.6. In Parallel, Private Housing Production
The government considerably shapes the urban landscape through its housing policy
for struggling populations. Private promoters also heavily influence the urban
development of cities and are but little constrained by the municipalities, notably for
financial reasons. Indeed, whether for residences for wealthy populations or for premises
for economic and commercial activities, large-scale private developments are emerging
and benefit only rarely the settlements built by the government for low-income
45. Primarily foreigners and single people.
Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities © AFD 2009