Housing Policy In South Africa Research Articles

Housing and Child Health in South Africa: The Value of Longitudinal Research.

Research investigating the link between housing and health often produces mixed results. It does not always prove that good housing improves health. The results suggest a complex set of factors play a role, and the findings are sometimes contradictory. Two ways of addressing these concerns are longitudinal research, where the relationship between housing and health is measured in the short and medium terms, and a focus on children. We use the children’s housing and health data from the five waves of the National Income and Distribution Survey (NIDS) survey in South Africa, 2008 to 2017. We investigate the effect that continued living in informal housing over the five waves has had on these children’s health. Our results show a statistically significant relationship between prolonged residence in poor housing and poor health outcomes for some health indicators. The results call for a closer understanding of health issues in housing policy in South Africa.

Social disruption, mine closure and housing policy: evidence from the Free State Goldfields, South Africa

The creation of mine settlements became a common practice between 1950 and 1980. These mining towns were seen as places of permanent settlement. This permanency, together with the privatisation of mine‐owned houses (mid‐1980s) increased place attachment. Mine decline thus brought with it some form of social disruption. Whereas mining companies in Australia have attempted to minimise the social disruption caused by mine closure by introducing fly‐in‐fly‐out arrangements, the post‐apartheid housing policy in South Africa has focused on asset building in mining areas. We completed 180 interviews with representatives of households. The survey formed part of a panel survey and further included a control group and 15 qualitative interviews. Our results indicate that though members of the mining community have housing units that are larger than those of the control group, incomes are lower in the mining community, real income is in decline, smaller numbers of household members are contributing to income, self‐assessments of wealth are characterised by lower ratings, household assets increase at a slower pace, and there is a stronger preference to continue to reside in the area. All of the above serves to illustrate the consequences of the asset‐based strategies embedded in South African housing policy. The social disruption associated with mine closure further tends to lock households into locations, and thus inhibits mobility.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND HOUSING POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Housing policy in South Africa requires that government departments at different spheres coordinate their activities to facilitate the provision of housing. This coordination is imperative because without such, effective housing provision remains compromised. The question that this paper raises is: whither intergovernmental relations (IGR) for housing policy implementation in South Africa? From this question it is clear that the nature of this discussion is conceptual as it seeks to engage on the institutional IGR model of public housing delivery. This question is raised in this paper because a system that ties activities of different spheres of government is necessary to realise housing policy implementation outcomes. However, in responding to this question several issues receive attention: Firstly, a broader view on a social contract as well as establishing public institutions to facilitate public service delivery.Secondly, intergovernmental relations and housing which consider the nature of IGR system in place, while arguing that this system is not viable for housing delivery. Thirdly, while the municipal accreditation system has been introduced, it remains complex and costly in addressing housing delivery challenges. In the final analysis, this paper argues for a constitutional amendment which would allow housing to become a functional competency of municipalities similar to other human settlements components such as roads constructions, electricity, sanitation and clean drinking water.

Mixed‐income housing development strategy

PurposeHigh rates of urbanization have concentrated housing needs in urban areas. This has resulted in a large‐scale housing and service backlog. The rapid growth in housing demand represents a mammoth task for both the present and future housing policy in South Africa. Local government in an effort to address this challenge has placed a high premium on informal settlement formalization and mixed‐income housing development. The rationale behind these two approaches is to address urban poverty, segregation and redevelopment. The purpose of this paper is to appraise mixed‐income housing development with the objective of integration along racial and social grounds and to denounce the negative perception that the poor and rich cannot live side by side, as well as to provide evidence‐based public‐private partnership (PPP) in development.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation will be based on primary and secondary data with great emphasis on the analysis of the findings of Shift, an NGO, in reviewing the success and challenges of mixed‐income housing development. Both published and unpublished literatures were used equally in the study, as well as focus group discussion and interviews with the beneficiaries as well as the principal developers and City of Johannesburg representatives. These findings will be contextualized to Cosmo City in Johannesburg because this happens to be one of the municipalities with a high rate of migration and attendant housing shortage.FindingsIntegration of the poor into the urban system is achievable with effective and efficient PPP. This investigation also finds that the mixed‐income housing development can lead to an inclusive city and bring about change in the paradigm of criminalization of the poor as being not suitable to live side by side with the rich. Poverty and marginalization can be addressed through carefully planned housing typology.Originality/valueFor mixed‐income housing development to be successful and sustainable, this paper shows there is a need for interactive participation of the end user or beneficiaries. Integration along social and racial lines can be achieved through appropriate housing typology. There is a need for inter‐sectoral collaboration and partnership between the public and private sectors in addressing informal settlement challenge and urban poverty in developing countries.

The Rhythms of the Yards: Urbanism, Backyards and Housing Policy in South Africa

Modernist planners became thieves of memory. Faustian in their eagerness to erase all traces of the past in the interest of forward momentum, of growth in the name of progress, their drive-by-windscreen surveys of neighbourhoods that they have already decided to condemn to the bulldozer, have been, in their own way, as deadly as the recent drive by gang shootings in Los Angeles. Modernist planners embracing the ideology of development as progress, have killed whole communities, by evicting them, demolishing their houses, and dispersing them to edge suburbs or leaving them homeless. They have killed whole communities by not understanding the loss and grieving that go along with losing one's home and neighbourhood and friends and memories. (Sandercock 1998:208) When watching the news, you find that the government is only concerned with shack dwellers. What about us? We are sitting with big expectations that they will build us houses. We have grown so old sitting in the backyards. Backyard shack-dweller, Johannesburg, 1999

Housing for the poor? Negotiated housing policy in South Africa

Official discussion and negotiation on housing policy in South Africa was closed in 1994 with the launch of the new Housing White Paper. Contradictions in this policy between housing procedure and delivery target have limited its relevance to the poorest sector in society. The paper shows how these tensions between product and process are an outcome of negotiated policy-making, in which the attempt was to combine the dominant position of the private sector for the commodification of housing, with people-centred housing procedures advocated by the democratic movement. In the second term of ANC government, the housing ministry, aware of some of the limitations of its policy, stated its intention to review the housing policy. This has led to renewed discussion. The paper traces shifts and continuities in recent positions on housing in South Africa. It traces their emergence from within the democratic movement including labour and community or civic organisation, the more recent Homeless People's Federation/People's Dialogue alliance, and the private sector with its influential Urban Foundation and subsequent policy research institutes. The paper argues that shifts in housing finance have largely ignored the needs of the poorest sector in society. Further, the inadequately integrated location of subsidised development for the poorest remains unchallenged. The perception of local government merely as implementer in a centralised programme limits the ability to address local realities, also imposing bureaucratic constraints on community-based construction. In addition, an evasive discourse on squatting does not lend itself to the formulation of mechanism of intervention oriented around the needs of the poor. These limitations in addressing poverty through housing policy should inform future research on shelter in South Africa.

Self-help Housing as a Flexible Instrument of State Control in 20th-century South Africa

There is a long and varied usage of self-help housing policy in South Africa, dating from colonial times when Africans were dumped in locations and left to build their own housing, to the present post apartheid reconstruction. The paper documents and periodises the adoption of self-help strategies for housing the African population of South African cities throughout the 20th century. Exploration of the practice of self-help housing practices in Johannesburg suggests that owner construction is a prevailing method of social engineering, whose acceptance or rejection reflects perceived political and economic advantages for the state and the private sector, and is not a simple response to a shortage of affordable shelter among the poor.

Arenas of contested citizenship: housing policy in South Africa

There are well-founded concerns that current South African housing policy will entrench and reinforce rather than reduce existing inequalities that are the legacy of apartheid. This study examines the processes by which attempts to formulate housing policy that would have moved the country towards egalitarian citizenship were undermined and scuttled largely through inappropriate timing of policy negotiations and shrewed manipulation of the process by forces opposed to change. The housing policy analysis is centered on the core themes of citizenship, property, and place which are pivotal to the process of post-apartheid healing and reconciliation. An introduction to these concepts in the context of housing policy in apartheid South Africa sets the background against which the proceedings of the National Housing Forum, the vehicle for policy negotiation and formulation established during the dying years of apartheid, are examined. The policy that emerged and was adopted by the post-apartheid government are then evaluated within the framework of the core themes of the study. The analysis is structured around the major place types that are the legacy of apartheied: the African “location” or township, the displaced urban settlements or dormitory towns of the African reserves, and the rural homestead. Within this structure, the form of citizenship of the inhabitants of each place type, namely, township residents, migrant workers, long distance commuters, and rural women is considered. The analysis reveals that realizing the goals of equal citizenship is contingent upon policy that will move beyond the confines of the current uniform and monetarist approach, and address the broader issues of property and place.

Housing policy in South Africa

This paper traces the development of housing policy in South Africa from its emergence in the 1920s as a response to social and public health problems associated with accelerated urbanisation to its current deployment as a vehicle of ‘reconstruction and development’ in the post-apartheid order. The account focuses on the implication of housing policy in the successive socio-political projects of ‘segregation’ and ‘apartheid’ between the 1930s and the mid-1970s, as well as protracted attempts at policy reform during the late 1970s and 1980s in the aftermath of the ‘township revolt’. It deals primarily with changing responses to what remained, until quite recently, a central concern of housing policy in South Africa — the attempt to ‘contain’ urbanisation within the African population. From this retrospective view, the paper moves to an examination of the key difficulties embedded in current housing policy. These are bound up with efforts to overcome the continuing housing ‘backlog’ in ways which, on the one hand, remain wedded to a simplistic, ‘supply side’ approach and, on the other, fail to address the social and spatial legacy of aprtheid ‘social engineering’ in South African cities. The paper concludes with a brief review of the prospects for developing a more effective policy framework in the future.

The development of housing policy in South Africa in the post apartheid period

Abstract Housing is one of the greatest problems facing the new South Africa. This paper outlines the ways housing policies have been developed in the period up to and following the first free elections in May 1994. The paper summarises the Housing White Paper (Department of Housing, 1994a) which forms a comprehensive basis for current policies. The most interesting feature which emerges from this policy‐making process is how far consultation and consensus, with the active involvement of many pressure groups such as the National Housing Forum, allowed an African National Congress (ANC) dominated government, to produce a package of proposals which have private finance rather than collectivist solutions at their core.

Integrated housing policy in South Africa: cost constraints on built form

A population of all possible eight-face polyominoes is generated to represent low-cost house designs. A cost formula is then derived and applied to this population. The effects of cost on the built form of houses are enumerated, and the results suggest one way of exploring the relationship between the process of housing procurement and the architecture of house form itself.

Women and housing policy in South Africa: A discussion of Durban case studies

Women and housing policy in South Africa: A discussion of Durban case studies

Shaping a Racially Divided Society: State Housing Policy in South Africa, 1920–50

Public housing assistance for poor whites in South Africa was introduced to ensure social and geographical isolation for the voting minority. The policy of relative advantage of housing needs of whites over those of the rest of the working class remained unchallenged until the consummation of residential segregation was achieved under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Although endorsed as an instrument for social and residential cleavage, efforts by the state to give residential assistance to working-class whites prior to the imposition of separate group areas are shown to have been restricted by wider political and economic considerations. Efforts to upgrade and separate the housing of working-class whites from the black urban community met with limited success in the interwar years. After World War 2, fiscal restrictions and the politics that surrounded the rapid urbanisation of Africans challenged the practice, if not the policy, of housing advantage for whites.

Dewar, David and George Ellis, "Low Income Housing Policy in South Africa with Particular Reference to the Western Cape" (Book Review)

Dewar, David and George Ellis, "Low Income Housing Policy in South Africa with Particular Reference to the Western Cape" (Book Review)