World Habitat – A Call for Decent Housing

 Urban Poor Associates

25-A Mabuhay Street, Brgy. Central, Q.C.          Telefax: 4264118          Tel.: 4264119 / 4267615

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About five hundred urban poor assembled today in Anda Circle, Bonifacio drive at 5PM to celebrate world habitat month. The group with their colorful placards calling for decent housing marched to the Ninoy and Cory Aquino monument in Padre Burgos Street, Roxas Boulevard.

The Task Force Anti-Eviction composed of various people’s organizations and NGOs such as the Urban Poor Associates (UPA) and Community Organizers Multiversity (COM) said the Ninoy and Cory monument is a reminder to everyone to help the poorest of the poor of our country through mass actions to support a call for decent and affordable housing in the city.

TFAE together with the people held a small program at the monument. Some of them rendered songs and dances. At 7PM, 500 people all together lit the candles that brighten the night. They read a statement that encourages everyone to participate in promoting adequate housing a priority.

The group also prayed that the government help in the rehabilitation of the communities and to provide mass housing to the thousands victims of disasters in Bohol and arm conflicts in Zamboanga.

Jeorgie Tenolete, president of Kabalikat in Baseco, Tondo, said, “Our community in Baseco has been long proclaimed but without the help of civil society it would not be able to survive threats of demolition. We are asking the government to implement the Baseco Development Plan to show its sincerity.”

 

“We also asked our authorities to ensure that our brother and sisters who suffered from calamity and war may not just get aid but safe and affordable housing, Tenolete added”

UPA data shows that there are 100,000 families living on waterways that are threatened of eviction.

Liza Condino, COM community organizer of fisher folk in Laguna Lake said, “the government plans of building a dike-road around the lake has a good intention to avoid flooding in the lake side, but it will cause the relocation of 45,000 families in far areas.”

Condino reiterated that they do not oppose the flood control project but it is important the government involve the people in planning the project and to explain to them that a massive moving of people will do tremendous harm to families. She wants to secure that the families can decide their own future.

TFAE also demanded that the President hasten the implementation of the covenant he signed with the urban poor on March 6, 2010 at Del Pan Sports Complex.

Ricardo Narcilla, president of United Chrislam along the waterway of Estero De San Miguel, urged the President to fast track the four on-site housing projects in Estero De San Miguel, Quiapo and San Sebastian.

Narcilla added, “Our neighbors, about 88 families, were already demolished. We fear that we will also be evicted if the housing project will not be started within the year. We know that our president hands are full, but we needed him for the implementation of the project.”

TFAE is also lobbying for the House Bill No. 2791 filed by 16 congressmen lead by COOP-NATTCO Representative Cresente Paez. It seeks to amend several sections of UDHA to strengthen the protected right of every Filipino to a decent home, and provide sanctions upon those who violate the mandate of the law.

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World Habitat Day

Let's stand up on World Habitat Day and let it be known that affordable, adequate housing should be a priority everywhere—in our communities, in our towns, in our country, in our world.

http://worldhabitatdaynews.com

News Facts

The United Nations has designated the first Monday each October as
World Habitat Day.

This year on Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C. and around the world, please join Habitat for Humanity in support of this global observance as we come together and declare that the lack of decent, affordable housing is unacceptable.

According to the United Nations, more than 100 million people in the world today are homeless. Millions more face a severe housing problem living without adequate sanitation, with irregular or no electricity supply and without adequate security.


Worldwide, more than 2 million housing units per year are needed for the next 50 years to solve the present worldwide housing crisis. With our global population expanding, however, at the end of those 50 years, there would still be a need for another 1 billion houses. (UN-HABITAT: 2005)

Raising awareness and advocating for change are the first steps toward transforming systems that perpetuate the global plague of poverty housing. World Habitat Day serves as an important reminder that everyone must unite to ensure that everyone has a safe, decent place to call home.

The U.N. further states that both developed and developing countries, cities and towns are increasingly feeling the effects of climate change, resource depletion, food insecurity, population growth and economic instability.

Rapid rates of urbanization cause serious negative consequences - overcrowding, poverty, slums with many poorly equipped to meet the service demands of ever growing urban populations.

With over half of the world’s population currently living in urban areas the U.N. believes there is no doubt that the "urban agenda" will increasingly become a priority for governments, local authorities and their non-governmental partners everywhere.


U.S. Housing Facts

* About 95 million people, one third of the nation, have housing problems including a high-cost burden, overcrowding, poor quality shelter and homelessness. (National Low Income Housing Coalition: 2004)

* One in three American households spend more than 30 percent of income on housing, and one in seven spends more than 50 percent. (Joint Center for Housing Studies: 2006)

* The number of low-income families that lack safe and affordable housing is related to the number of children that suffer from asthma, viral infections, anemia, stunted growth and other health problems. About 21,000 children have stunted growth attributable to the lack of stable housing; 10,000 children between the ages of 4 and 9 are hospitalized for asthma attacks each year because of cockroach infestation at home; and more than 180 children die each year in house fires attributable to faulty electrical heating and electrical equipment. (Sandel, et al: 1999)


Global poverty facts

* By the year 2030, an additional 3 billion people, about 40 percent of the world’s population, will need access to housing. This translates into a demand for 96,150 new affordable units every day and 4,000 every hour. (UN-HABITAT: 2005)

* One out of every three city dwellers – nearly a billion people – lives in a slum. (Slum indicators include: lack of water, lack of sanitation, overcrowding, non-durable structures and insecure tenure.) (UN-HABITAT: 2006)

* UN-Habitat has reported that because of poor living conditions, women living in slums are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than their rural counterparts, and children in slums are more likely to die from water-borne and respiratory illness. (UN-HABITAT: 2006)

* Housing formation generates non-housing related expenditures that help drive the economy. (Kissick, et al: 2006)

* Investing in housing expands the local tax base. (Kissick, et al: 2006)



The theme for World Habitat Day 2009 is "Planning our Urban Future"
Celebrations of World Habitat Day in Washington, D.C. will be an excellent opportunity to foster global discussion and raise the profile of shelter and urban issues at the national and international level. Events in the United States and around the world include policy forums, award presentations, luncheons, dinners, house-building and exhibitions.

Visit the Habitat for Humanity Web site

Governments must end forced evictions and address global housing crisis at the root of global financial crisis

On the occasion of the World Habitat Day, 6 October 2008, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) calls upon governments to end forced evictions and other housing rights violations. COHRE further urges governments and other relevant agencies to direct the necessary resources towards addressing the acute housing crises in both rural and urban areas. COHRE is convinced that the unmet demand for adequate housing provided the primary target for the predatory lending practices that have led to the current spate of worldwide bank failures and the ensuing global financial crisis. The realization of housing rights for the world's poor majority must not now be sacrificed in the name of international economic "recovery" efforts.

World leaders can no longer continue to ignore widespread violations of the fundamental human right to adequate housing. Millions of people continue to be forcibly evicted from their homes and lands. In Beijing, 1.5 million people have been displaced to create space for Olympic venues, for city ‘beautification’ projects in advance of the Olympics, as well as in the context of other urban development projects. This massive displacement of persons and communities is ongoing today. In Abuja, Nigeria, the Federal Capital Development Authority selectively used the City’s Master Plan to forcibly evict more than 800,000 during the period 2003 to 2007. Over three years after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, in the United States, thousands of families are still being denied the right to return to their homes. In Cambodia, over 50,000 people were forcibly evicted during 2006-2007 for agro-industrial and development projects. Indeed, even Luanda, Angola, which hosts this year’s World Habitat Day celebrations, has similarly undertaken large-scale forced evictions, involving many thousands of persons, in the recent period.

Ongoing housing rights abuses have also taken other forms. In Burma, cyclone Nargis survivors have reportedly been forcibly returned to their villages by the Burmese government, despite the absence of adequate rehabilitation. In Sri Lanka, the government has threatened to forcibly close transitional shelters in Colombo, in advance of any durable solution for persons displaced by the 2004 tsunami. Indigenous communities such as the Brazilian Quilombos and the Bedouin in Israel have been arbitrarily deprived of their land, despite the adoption by the UN General Assembly in September 2007 of the Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, which sets out extensive commitments to maintain the integrity of land tenure for such groups. The Roma in Europe face extensive racial segregation in housing, enforced through forced eviction practices, matters comprehensively banned by international law. The recent period has seen dramatic intensification of such practices by the Italian and French governments in particular.

While countless people continue to be driven into homelessness, governments are abdicating their responsibility to ensure access to affordable housing and public services. In some cases, governments are even scaling down commitments made previously to meet the growing demand for affordable housing. For example, in the post-communist world, social housing systems have been dismantled in a number of countries, with few or no protections introduced to protect persons forced by these acts into extreme poverty. The widespread neglect of rural infrastructure including water, sanitation and housing coupled with increased land alienation has led to growing rural-urban migration. In addition, the fast pace of urbanisation in many developing countries has far exceeded local government capacity or willingness to provide basic amenities to city residents, including adequate housing, water, electricity and sanitation. Such urbanisation has resulted in the creation of vast slums where residents live in sub-standard housing conditions, without access to even the most basic services.

While inadequate living conditions and forced evictions affect all residents, women and girls all too often bear a disproportionately greater burden. Violence, vulnerability to abuse and exploitation, inadequate provision of services, housing insecurity, and lack of privacy are common experiences with profoundly gendered dimensions.

There are, however, inspirational alternative approaches. In one leading example, Naga City, in the Philippines, has enacted landmark legislation mandating city government agencies to establish a partnership with community organisations to work towards security of tenure and improved living conditions for its residents. Naga City has also adopted a range of adjunct policies with a view to finding long-term solutions to problems of lack of security of tenure faced by the urban poor as well as to promote slum upgrading.

A major housing rights victory was recently won when the City of Johannesburg implemented the voluntary relocation of 450 residents of two inner city slum buildings to two newly refurbished buildings. This successful relocation was possible due to an order by the Constitutional Court of South Africa that directed the City government to engage in meaningful consultation with affected persons.

COHRE urges governments to take cognisance of this and similar progressive approaches to securing the right to adequate housing for all. COHRE further urges all governments to take immediate steps, as specified by international law, to address the spiralling global housing crisis. In particular, COHRE urges that governments worldwide:

- End, without delay, the practice of forced eviction
- Respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate housing including the right to water and sanitation for all
- Promote development processes that minimise displacement
- Devise and implement plans to address homelessness and inadequate housing in consultation with affected persons and communities, and their representatives
- Take steps to mitigate the impacts of inadequate housing on marginalised groups, including women, racial and ethnic minorities, and children, and
- Celebrate the work of housing rights defenders, and work toward their inclusion in policy frameworks to resolve outstanding housing rights issues

Church joins housing rights advocates in observance of Habitat Day

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Church joins housing rights advocates in observance of Habitat Day

28 September 2007. Bagbag cemetery is what Encarnacion Regalado and her family call ‘home’. They are living on top of a niche, using sacks as wall and dilapidated iron sheets as roof. The family has survived there for 28 years in the midst of heavy rains and a hell-like weather. Their horrific experience so far was not about ghost encounter but the non-stop demolition to make way for new compartments for the dead.

Regalado family is only one of the increasing number of homeless in Metro Manila, according to Urban Poor Associates (UPA), a non-government organization dealing with homelessness. “The government’s policies such as privatization of the public land, improvement of the dangerous area, beautification of the street have triggered forced evictions and illegal demolitions rendering poor families homeless.”

UPA called for a halt to demolitions as the world celebrates Habitat Day on October 1. "Driving away people from their homes is the most inhuman way to celebrate the World Habitat Day,” said Lawyer Bienvenido Salinas II, coordinator of UPA's legal unit St. Thomas More Law Center.

UPA notes that almost all cases of rampant demolitions being conducted by the government throughout Metro Manila have violated in one way or another the international laws and the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA), which prohibits use of force during demolitions and requires provision of suitable relocation areas.

Lack of adequate housing highlights a key concern in a letter signed last September 13, 2007 by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo.

The CBCP Permanent Council requests Archbishops, Bishops and Diocesan Administrators, to enjoin their priests to read in all Holy Masses on October 7 the CBCP’s “A Statement on the Nation’s Housing Problems" which was issued by the 94th Bishops' Plenary Assembly.

“As we speak in behalf of our homeless brethren and those living in very difficult conditions, let us continue praying for the speedy action of the government in response to their needs. Let us help them in whatever way we can,” Archbishop Lagdameo said.

Task Force Anti-Illegal Demolition (TF-AID) lauded the Church’s efforts in calling on those concerned to stop uncaring evictions and demolitions. Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, for example, has condemned as inhuman the ongoing demolition of houses along Commonwealth, Quezon City. Last September 24, together with priests and nuns, Bishop Tobias personally asked Mayor Feliciano Belmonte to stop the wrecking crew of Metro Manila Development Authority so that affected families can find temporary staging area.

TF-AID spokesperson Soti Sabarre said poor families who are mostly under eviction threat are set to mobilize next week to urge the government to look into their plight instead of the mouthwatering ZTE deal. “The $329-million contract for the National Broadband Network (NBN) project could already house 300,000 homeless families but this government would never borrow that amount to uplift the lives of the poor.”

TF-AID was formed by UPA, Community Organization of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE) Foundation, Community Organizers Multiversity (COM) and people’s organizations affected by government projects such as flood control, railway improvement, road widening and beautification. -30-