South Africa's Emergency Housing Programme: A prism of urban contest

Abstract

The Emergency Housing Programme (EHP) is an important subsidy tool in South Africa. The EHP was designed to realise the right to housing and ensure that municipalities rapidly respond to emergency housing situations. However, the programme's implementation has been harshly critiqued by activists, academics, and even other state departments, for a range of valid reasons. This paper explores the findings of a year-long research project consisting mainly of case studies, interviews, workshops and policy review aimed at understanding these criticisms. The research found that the EHP implementers are constrained by conflicted urban development imperatives that include: systemic housing demand, building investment-friendly and efficient cities, and other developmental programmes. This paper argues for a reading of the implementation of EHP as problematic prioritisation, rather than simply one of poor provision. In this way, EHP serves as a prism for urban contest and advocate for more strategic, holistic, and progressive urban decision-making.

Keywords:

• emergency housing
• informal settlements
• South African cities
• urban policy
• temporary relocation areas

1. Introduction

The Emergency Housing Programme (EHP) is an important subsidy tool in South Africa. The EHP allows the state to fulfil its constitutional mandate to ensure access to adequate shelter and respond hastily to emergency situations. However, in the last five years, problematic emergency housing responses have attracted increased political and scholarly attention (Lemanski & Oldfield, 2009; Development Action Group, 2007; Huchzermeyer, 2011). The temporary relocation areas (TRAs) used to house the homeless are often described as ‘concentration camps’ due to their poor locations and depressing character (Brott, 2011; Legassick, 2008). The on-site assistance offered to people to rebuild their shacks in cases of floods and fires is seen as wholly inadequate and inhumane. The reconstruction of formal housing has been plagued with corruption and misallocation. Moreover, the routine use of the programme for non-pressing emergencies and unnecessary relocations, such as to build stadia or rehouse evicted people, appears to favour the needs and demands of the urban wealthy at the expense of the poor (Pillay & Bass, 2008).

This paper is based on a study conducted in 2011 for the Housing Development Agency. This study was concerned with the implementation and practice of the emergency housing provision. An in-depth policy review of the EHP (National Housing Code 2009, Part 3) and relevant court cases were undertaken. In addition, this study included six emergency housing case studies conducted in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. To supplement, popular perspectives on the use of EHP were extracted from a review of popular media such as blogs and news.

This study found that the overwhelming critiques of the programme are valid. However, a deeper look at the programme highlights more complex challenges. On the ground, decision-makers frequently act on an ad-hoc basis devoid of broader strategy and framework (Huchzermeyer, 2003). Among spheres and departments, there is a struggle to balance the conflicting and often incommensurable development imperatives required of local and provincial governments while literally and figuratively ‘fire-fighting’ the emergency situations that beset ‘informal cities’. Problematic implementation of the programme foregrounds the internal struggles of housing departments to simultaneously address the emergency needs of poor people and the long-term development of sustainable human settlements. In addition, there is pressure to build efficient and investment-friendly cities, and to address a plethora of other developmental concerns, including education, health and economic development, which require financial budget, capacity, space, and prioritisation. As such, the provision of emergency housing is stunted by a lack of aligned urban policy which confronts and negotiates these trade-offs.

1.1 Informal settlements in South Africa: Constructing emergency situations

In South Africa, the majority of public housing is produced by the state's Reconstruction and Development housing programme (known colloquially as RDP housing). This programme, and the officials and politicians who propel it, promise to deliver ‘free housing’ to low-income households who meet specific criteria. However, delivery has failed to keep pace with the growing demand. Implementers struggle to meet proposed delivery targets and appease the discontent masses. Many poor households seek shelter though informal housing markets such as sprawling ‘slums’ (agglomerations of self-build shacks), backyard shacks (often adjacent to formally constructed housing) and ‘hijacked’ (informally occupied) tenement buildings (Lemanski, 2009; Community Agency for Social Enquiry, 2012).

According to the most recent census, almost 14% of households in South Africa now live in informal dwellings (Statistics South Africa, 2011 Census). Major metros, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Tshwane and a number of growing towns (particularly mining and industrial towns), have experienced increases in informal housing over the past 10 years (Statistics South Africa, 2011). The persistence of informal housing and settlements reflects not only the lack of accommodation options available to poor households, but the benefits that well-located, flexible and affordable housing offers. Informal settlements often act as important entry points into the city and enable poor households to access amenities, facilities, and urban services (Charlton, 2009; Landman & Napier, 2010).

However, fires, floods, evictions and other crises occur on a regular basis in informal housing areas (Bull-Kamanga et al., 2003; Inter-Agency Standing Committee, 2010; Pelling & Wisner, 2009; Khalifa, 2011). These risks and vulnerabilities are commonly believed to be socially and politically driven, rather than only technical or environmental (Bankoff, 2001). There is growing recognition that informal settlements and the hazards they face are not only a response to migration into cities (i.e. urbanisation processes). They are also produced through deeply unjust and systemic processes of access and marginality within cities (Huchzermeyer, 2011). The regularity of emergency situations in informal settlements is acutely felt by implementers tasked with response. Johan Gerber in the City of Cape Town's Informal Settlement Department explains: ‘disasters are huge! Emergencies are just part of my day to day’ (interview, City of Cape Town, 2011). The routine of emergency housing response is testament to the normalisation of informal housing in South African cities.

2. Responding to housing emergencies

The boundary between emergency and non-emergency housing situations in South African cities, particularly as it relates to informal settlements, has always been ambiguous. Wilkinson (1998:217) reminds us that as far back as the early twentieth century, efforts to eradicate so-called dangerous ‘plague spots’ and relocate households to ‘Native Locations’ formed part of the response to perceived risks of urban informal settlement. However, the vigour through which ‘emergency’ designation was applied remained inconsistent, corresponding to political imperative rather than particular conditions.

A bill of rights was introduced in the post-apartheid transition. The right to housing was clearly outlined in the 1996 Constitution Section 26(1). Despite this, in the early years of democracy, state responses to fires, floods, evictions and other crisis continued to be ad hoc and fragmented. Rights were frequently upheld through legislative coercion, the ambiguity of responsibility leading to haphazard outcomes and violent clashes between communities and the state (Huchzermeyer, 2003; Wilson, 2011).

2.1 A history of legislation

A range of important court cases shape the ongoing battle to more clearly articulate and institutionalise the fulfilment of the Constitutional right to housing. In cases of eviction, a number of organisations have worked to compile and interpret this history in detail. The Social and Economic Rights Institute and the Center on Housing Rights and Eviction offer substantial documentation on this trajectory (also see Coggin & Pieterse, 2012). Less attention has been given to the other uses and tools of the programme, with minimal consideration, for example, from the field of disaster management.

Of particular relevance to emergency housing interventions is a 2000 Constitutional Court case, Government of the Republic of South Africa and Others vs. Grootboom and Others. This case articulated the need for a programme that could respond to immediate need and homelessness (Huchzermeyer, 2003; Wilson, 2011). The Grootboom case involved a group of households who, after years of waiting for their housing subsidy, occupied a vacant parcel of land that was earmarked for low-income housing. The households were then forcibly evicted and forced to find shelter on the Wallacedene sports field where they erected makeshift structures. The evictees filed an urgent application to all three spheres of government to grant temporary accommodation until permanent accommodation could be secured. The Court found the municipality in breach of their Constitutional obligation.

The Grootboom case confirmed that socioeconomic rights were justiciable. The EHP was created to meet this mandate (Pillay, 2002). In 2004 the first EHP was included in the National Housing Code with the purpose of responding to this mandate (the programme was modified in the most recent 2009 Housing Code). The EHP requires provinces (responsible for dividing national housing funds among the various housing programmes) to balance longer term delivery targets with rapid emergency response.

Since Grootboom, other important cases have also demonstrated the marked contest of addressing cases of emergency and, particularly, land eviction. In 2001, the forceful eviction of land occupiers on the outskirts of Johannesburg, known as Bredell, and the subsequent launch of the Landless People's Movement brought the question of access to urban land into the national spotlight (Hart, 2013). While urban land was (and largely continues to be) seen as outside the ambit of redistribution, the case of Bredell signalled what would become an ongoing challenge for post-apartheid South African cities in the balancing of existing property rights with those of housing and land access (Huchzermeyer, 2003).

A number of other important Constitutional Court cases have shaped the state responses to cases of emergency housing, further articulating when and how the programme should be used. In particular, the Olivia Road² case addresses the state's obligation to engage in a meaningful way with people facing evictions. In addition, the Joe Slovo³ case set forth an important set of guidelines for the provision of temporary units. Finally, the recent Blue Moonlight Property case⁴ further articulated the role of the state, and particularly the municipality, in provision of alternative accommodation in cases of eviction from private property (Wilson, 2011). These cases show the strong hand that the courts have had in shaping the Emergency Housing Programme and its implementation and pressurising local governments to fulfil their constitutional obligations.

2.2 The Emergency Housing Programme

This section gives an overview of the policy, what it is generally used for, and the implementation modalities most frequently deployed. The purpose is to paint a more whole picture of the programme and unpack the challenges faced in delivery.

According to the Housing Code, the intention of the EHP is to ‘address the needs of households who for reasons beyond their control find themselves in an emergency housing situation’ (Department of Human Settlements, 2009:9). The municipality is responsible for responding to an emergency housing situation. However, the funding for emergency housing is allocated via the provinces in the form of grants (for land, services and shelter, and relocation/resettlement).⁵ Due to the nature of the programme, the budget has remained relatively small. In 2013, the EHP constituted 2.57% of the total Human Settlements Development Grant allocation to provinces. However, the spread of budget across provinces is diverse. Gauteng, for example, allocates no budget (despite the requirement to do so) whereas the Eastern Cape allocates almost 6%.⁶

Unlike the other South African housing delivery programmes (excluding the first phases of the Upgrading Informal Settlements Programme), the EHP does not have beneficiary selection criteria in terms of income or nationality. For example, non-South Africans and those who earn higher than the subsidy threshold can still be assisted⁷ (Department of Human Settlements, 2009). It therefore allows for the most comprehensive coverage and differentiates itself from programmes that target asset transfers and subsidy mechanisms for particular demographics and housing submarkets. This, in theory, alleviates the burden of identifying households which do not qualify and allows for speedier delivery of housing.

The policy defines an emergency housing situation to include: declared disaster as per the Disaster Management Act of 2002, homelessness caused by fire, flood, and other ‘extra-ordinary’ circumstances, living in generally dangerous conditions, evictions, demotions, and displacement (and imminent threat thereof), those living in the way of proposed engineering services and, finally, ‘a situation of exceptional housing need, which constitutes an Emergency that can reasonably be addressed only by resettlement or other appropriate assistance’ (Department of Human Settlements, 2009:15). This definition clearly speaks to both proactive and reactive emergency situations. Given the explicit inclusion of situations of ‘risk’ and ‘threat’, it is difficult to find a situation that does not fall under this definition. As such, emergency housing has become a ‘catch-up’ programme without clear parameters.

2.3 Implementing the programme

Most people living in an informal settlement could fall under the broad parameters of the above definition of ‘emergency’, although not all informal settlements benefit from the programme. Judging from interviews with implementers, the programme tends to be used to: respond to particular emergency events, which have taken place when people are left homeless; or to permanently or temporarily relocate people in the case of eviction or rollover upgrading. There are some exceptions wherein the policy has been used to address cases of high-risk settlement proactively (such as the Access to Basic Services Programme in the Western Cape); however, generally this has not been the case (personal communication, E. Muanza, Provincial Department of Human Settlements, Cape Town, 2013). There are many tools available in the programme.⁸ However, implementers generally use the programme to supply on-site assistance (such as poles and metal sheets), reconstruct formal housing, or build temporary or permanent camps (i.e. transit camps, TRAs, etc.). The following offers details and critiques on each use of the programme.

2.4 On-site assistance

On-site assistance supports shack reconstruction due to fires and floods. This response consists of offering materials in the form of poles, corrugated iron sheets, screws, and a variety of other basic materials. In cases where the municipalities have good working relationships with the province, budgets for seasonal emergencies may be preapproved (such as the case in the City of Cape Town). On-site assistance can also include ‘transit camps’, which are prefabricated and contractor-constructed corrugated metal structures. Such as the case in Kwazulu-Natal, transit camps are also provided in cases where material distribution is not feasible. This is often due to lack of state capacity to manage the distribution process or lack of community capacity to rebuild structures.

Shack reconstruction and transit camps allow for breadth in delivery (i.e. more people can be helped at a faster speed). This is often necessary in emergency situations where many people are rendered homeless. The lower quality and the ability to ‘pre-approve’ service providers for delivery allows for speed in delivery. However, the low standard to which this support is offered often creates fertile ground for future emergency situations and continued vulnerability. For example, in the case of Jadhu Place (Springfield, Durban), a transit camp was established after a major fire in the settlement in 2008. This did not deter subsequent fires, which struck the settlement in the following years. Additionally, it is often suggested that basic material provision does not constitute adequate shelter as it often provides only a portion of the housing materials. In Cape Town, for example, this use of the programme has been the focus of political outcry in recent years, with non-governmental organisations and community groups rejecting the delivery of basic materials as pithy and inadequate. There is demand for more sustainable, humane, and resilient investments in high-risk poor communities (personal communication, J. Gerber, Department of Human Settlements, Cape Town, 2011).

2.5 Formal housing reconstruction

Less frequently, the programme has been used to address formal home construction and repair. In cases where the state-subsidised housing or ‘traditional houses’ (peri-urban or rural) have been destroyed or severely damaged, the programme has been used to reconstruct houses. In these cases, the subsidy quantum is nearly equal to a full housing subsidy and households are required to demonstrate both financial need and lack of housing insurance. The full reconstruction of a house through this mechanism qualifies as the household's RDP subsidy allocation.

This particular programmatic approach has been heavily critiqued as it tends to be very slow and difficult to manage, forcing disaster relief agencies to play an extended role. The case of KwaMakhutha shows some of the challenges. In 2008 when a severe storm hit the area from KwaMakhutha to Luthuli along the East Coast, south of Durban, leaving approximately 1500 people homeless, the programme intervened to rebuild the majority of the houses that were affected (eThekwini Municipality, 2008). In the case of ‘Kwamakhutha’, many households lived in tents for over a year with no communication from municipalities and no clarity as to how allocation would take place. The budget for Kwamakhutha was exhausted long before the rebuilding work was finished, and many households remained homeless (Housing Development Agency, 2012a). The city also failed to keep detailed records. The province was reluctant to release funding to compensate them for the spending due to concerns regarding misallocation and accountability.

Notwithstanding the need to respond to formal housing dwellers who are rendered homeless, officials are wary of using this approach and tend to put in place seemingly arbitrary guidelines that determine when and how formal housing reconstruction can be used. This is generally in order to avoid what is termed ‘double dipping’ (one household getting two government subsidies) and households calling upon the EHP instead of a general insurance policy. This is perhaps the least systematically used emergency housing response and the most similar to the state RDP housing programme.

2.6 Relocation

Both the original intention and power of the EHP sit in the ability of cities and provinces to relocate people under conditions of ‘emergency’ to preferred sites and areas. The programme may be used for relocation in cases where people are in the way of proposed services or facilities, on private land (i.e. facing eviction), or on land ‘unfit’ for human settlement. This component of the programme has allowed for the building of TRAs, also known as transitional areas and transit camps, in and around cities on both state and borrowed land. These camps may be permanent or temporary (i.e. the camp may be permanent while the residents who live within it may not be). These camps have become political hot potatoes, causing both contestation and conflict on a variety of fronts; this is evident in the ongoing media coverage of TRAs and city eviction cases. Press releases by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Slum/Shack Dwellers International, Abahlali baseMjondolo and other organisations document the anger and frustration of residents living in TRAs and transit camps (for a few examples see Tissington, 2009; Abahlali baseMjondolo, 2008; Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, 2011; Sacks, 2013).

TRAs are usually in undesirable locations because the pressing immediacy under which they are developed often offers the state few options for available land parcels. This has often led to loss of jobs, access, and social networks for poor households. For example, in Cape Town, the majority of the bigger camps – including the Delft and Symphony Way camps – are far from the city and off the dominant public transport routes. In Durban, a number of officials alluded that the only site available for relocation was more than 20 km from the city. Moreover, community and neighbourhood resistance from all classes and races puts pressure on local implementers to isolate and peripheralise temporary camps. For example, attempts to relocate homeless people to a site near an informal settlement in Khayelitsha (Cape Town) were met with extreme resistance when informal dwellers pelted the local contractors for the TRA with stones and garbage.

TRAs were once imagined to be temporary sites. However, with their ongoing use, they have become permanent fixtures in many cities. The de-facto permanent nature of such areas is cause for concern. In the case of the Joe Solvo fire in 2005, the TRAs established were intended to last only a few years with rotating families, but the ‘Intersite’ (the name of the TRA in Langa) and other emergency sites that were built in Delft – nearly 20 km away – are still in use nearly eight years later. Additional TRAs have also been built in and around the Delft area, including the more infamous Symphony Way TRA (colloquially referred to as Blikkiesdorp – which translates as ‘tin town’) with funding from the programme.

Some officials and activists argue these areas should be seen as incremental development areas and assisted through the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme. This is evident in the City of Cape Town's efforts to replace the burdened terminology of the TRA with that of the ‘incremental development area’.⁹ Similarly this can be seen in Johannesburg, where the city's legal department claims to receive over 200 eviction cases that require alternative accommodation per year (Housing Development Agency, 2012b). In the case of the Marie Louise informal settlement located on the Pikitup dumping site and a privately owned mine, and other similar cases, the city has attempted to relocate people to permanent settlement areas in existing informal settlements which can be upgraded in the future. These approaches signal the growing realisation that temporary relocation is seldom actually temporary and deeply impacts on the livelihoods and social networks of vulnerable households. However, if relocation is, in fact, understood to be permanent, the relaxation of efforts to strategically locate and spatially plan human settlements loses acceptability.

3. Conflicting priorities in an urbanising South Africa

The above sections show how, and to some extent why, delivery of emergency housing is frequently critiqued by activists, academics, and even other state departments. There is undoubtedly substantial room to improve the implementation of the programme (see the Housing Development Agency's Emergency Housing Guidelines; Housing Development Agency, 2012a, http://www.thehda.co.za/uploads/images/HDA_Implementing_Emergency_Housing_Guidelines.pdf). However, I would like to argue that the delivery of EHP is inherently compromised. This is because it sits in an uncomfortable intersection. On the one hand, the programme is a reaction to the failures of the national housing delivery programme to proactively address conditions of risk and vulnerability. In South Africa the majority of the poor live in ‘emergency conditions’ (if we use the definition in the Housing Code). This raises questions of equity – whose emergency should be addressed first? On the other hand, the EHP is the most flexible tool by which to respond to evictions that are, in their nature, predicated on questions of rights to land and property. Finally, simply expanding the budget for EHP fails to solve the problem because many other programmes necessary to make sustainable human settlement also require funding. Put crudely, local governments are required to address existing property rights, existing plans and budgets, housing rights, and the systemic housing need simultaneously.

3.1 Systemic housing need

Local governments are mandated to systematically address housing need by delivering housing to the poor. Much of the vision for this programme and, by extension, urban transformation was articulated in the 1994 White Paper on Housing, including the need for scale and speed in housing delivery; the target of one million households in the first five years (Republic of South Africa, 1994).

To facilitate this, in the early 1990s, the National Housing Forum designed a project-linked capital subsidy programme modelled after the subsidy implemented by the Independent Development Trust in the early 1990s and much like the World Bank-inspired models used in parts of Latin America (Huchzermeyer, 2001; Harrison et al., 2003, 2008). In order to access this subsidy one must be a South African permanent resident or a citizen who earns less than R3500 household income per month and has not previously received a subsidy (among other qualifying criteria).

Despite the delivery of millions of homes (albeit generally in poor locations), many needy households are stuck on the seemingly static, yet constantly growing, waiting list wherein their qualification for a housing subsidy, and thus the right to adequate housing, means little more than an indefinite promise (Pillay et al., 2006). This housing waiting list has come to the fore of political debates in a recent paper entitled ‘Jumping the Queue: Waiting Lists and other Myths’ by lawyers from the Social and Economic Rights Institute & Community Law Centre (2013). Those waiting in informal settlements and backyard shacks for their housing allocation are becoming increasingly disenamoured with empty promises of politicians.

Those who do not qualify for subsidised housing (foreign nationals, those earning more than R3500, etc.) also live in informal housing and areas. They often have little hope of receiving state support or improved conditions. While these households often quietly survive in the city with hopes of going unnoticed by officials who may hope to ‘eradicate’ informal areas and deport undocumented immigrants, their tenuous living conditions are frequently sites of hazards and emergencies. The EHP has thus become the de-facto housing programme for addressing the risky and hazardous conditions of ‘non-qualifiers’ (i.e. people who do not qualify for subsidised housing).

In many ways, the inadequate and spatially fragmented delivery of RDP housing, combined with the lack of alternative housing opportunities for those termed ‘non-qualifiers’, reproduces conditions of risk and vulnerability for the urban poor. As such, emergency conditions and their ramifications are, in essence, normalised. In addition, the perpetual promises of the programme, in particular the discourse around the ‘waiting list’, creates a clear tension between emergency provision and RDP housing provision processes.

The normalisation of emergency conditions creates tensions between the RDP and emergency housing on the ground. Those waiting in backyards and informal settlements for their housing dispensation frequently become infuriated by the use of the programme to rehouse and relocate ‘newcomers’ (to the city), ‘queue jumpers’ (who are seen to be moving up on the housing ‘waiting list’) and ‘non-qualifiers’ (particularly non-South Africans). These tensions are most acutely felt by local implementers who are tasked with delivery and explanation. Because of both the lose definition of emergency and the contested nature of the ‘waiting list’, validating the use of housing resources on ‘emergency situations’ is a political (and frequently legal) exercise, rather than a technical or administrative one. It involves subjective decision-making regarding what and who qualifies.

3.2 City development and the protection of property

The EHP is frequently used to address evictions from property and land. This may include state property, such as sites that are earmarked for low-cost housing, schools, or clinics. It could also include private property such as warehouses, buildings, or land that is owned by companies or individuals. According to the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act, if the state grants an eviction, the state must provide alternative accommodation in most cases.

Many eviction cases are driven by regeneration projects which seek to upgrade and improve urban areas by eradicating informal housing. Bremner (2000) highlights the desire to create ‘world class cities’ in Africa as driving competition for scarce land and leading to many of the eviction cases that face local municipalities. Huchzermeyer (2003:80) argues that the courts have, in the past, been ‘reluctant to rule in favour of the poor when the economy or investor confidence is at stake’. Wilson (2009: 271) further argues that the two ‘defensive rights’ outlined in the Constitution – ‘no one may be deprived of property except in terms of a law of general application … and … no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property’ and ‘no legislation may permit arbitrary evictions’ – are frequently and routinely the cause of conflict over land and rights in post-apartheid South Africa.

The Blue Moonlight Property case has recently set precedent for the provision of alternative accommodation for those evicted from private property across the country. In this case, the city refused to offer alternative accommodation to households evicted from private property. The City lost this case on the grounds that the Grootboom case, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act, and the EHP are explicit in the roles set forward for the state (Wilson, 2011). The City was asked to find alternative accommodation for all evictees within specified dates. After much battle, two options were offered to the occupiers: the MVB building and a homeless shelter run by Metro Evangelical Services (Tissington & Wilson, 2011; Wilson, 2012).

Many have expressed concern that these mandates both detract from the delivery of more sustainable accommodation through the housing delivery programme and subsidise developers and land owners who wish to make a profit off of ‘hijacked’ high-value land (personal communication, Z. Khan, Department of Human Settlements, Johannesburg, 2011; email personal communication, Robert McGaffin, 14 May 2013). The former national Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, went so far as to call the case ‘the legalisation of illegality’ which ‘could throw housing policy into chaos’ (Tissington & Wilson, 2011:4). With about 1500 ‘illegally occupied’ buildings in central Johannesburg, and nearly 60 in Durban, inner-city regeneration processes and projects will probably have huge impacts on the provision of emergency housing (Community Agency for Social Inquiry, 2012). The courts, having made clear the mandate of the city to both protect private property and uphold the right to housing, have left a precarious situation.

A number of pro-poor thinkers argue for the expropriation of private property rights, rather than evictions of the poor, to be considered in cases where rights clash (Brown-Luthango, 2010: Wilson, 2011; Berrisford & Greyling, forthcoming). However, local municipalities have been reluctant to jeopardise their rates bases, a vital source of income for the cities. This is understandable given the importance of economic growth in South African city centres. Turok & Watson (2001: 119) write: ‘[a]ccelerated economic development is vital to increase jobs and incomes in a more competitive international environment’. In this way, the protection of property rights, particularly in regenerating areas, is seen as an important element of the fiscal sustainability of municipalities. As South Africa struggles to attract both foreign and local investment, the tensions between the existing property rights and plans for city development and the socioeconomic rights of the poor will probably be exacerbated.

3.3 Other poverty reduction programmes and development goals

Perhaps many of the aforementioned issues hinge on issues of scarcity. The housing budget is limited, making up only a moderate portion of the national budget. Delivery of all programmes is beset with resource constraints (both financial and capacity). Moreover, as foci on housing shifts to ‘human settlements’ (as per the Breaking New Ground policy shift in language), additional pressure is put on other delivery programmes and sectors to share the mandate of realisation. As has been noted in Chapter 8 of the 2011 National Development Plan, the 2004 Breaking New Ground policy approach and other guiding documents (including Outcome 8), housing, as a shelter alone, is not producing sustainable communities (Department of Human Settlements, 2004, 2010; Pithouse, 2009). As such, the popular argument that we need to increase housing budgets in order to address all of the housing needs and demands must take cognisance of the broader limitations of the fiscus to address human settlements and emergency issues.

3.4 Balancing conflicting imperatives: An emerging policy agenda

While cities are often presented as the problem of the modern age and the solution to it, the inevitable growth of cities offers inescapable challenges and opportunities for urban practitioners (Parnell & Walawege, 2011). The challenges, opportunities and completing imperatives facing South African cities have been noted by a range of authors (see Cross, 2001; Pieterse, 2008). An analysis of the EHP highlights the struggle to prioritise competing development objectives and imperatives. Rather than vilifying government officials and departments, unpacking the competing imperatives facing the programme allows for the foregrounding of what is actually a crisis and contest of urban governance more generally in South African cities.

Suffice to say, for the past two decades South Africa has resisted creating urban policy that confronts these trades-offs and offers guidance to an array of urban stakeholders who are tasked with addressing the daily functioning of the city generally, and housing delivery specifically (Turok & Parnell, 2009; Pieterse, 2008). As such, individual departments and spheres, acting in isolated silos, have forged forward with fragmented mandates. Local implementers have often been tasked with deciphering and articulating these mandates while grappling with powerful interests operating at the scale of the city and beyond. While only a small piece of the puzzle, the EHP foregrounds a range of aspects of this contested process, highlighting the conflicts over urban rights in South African cities.

Reactive and ad-hoc programmes are socially and economically costly. As noted by the Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (2008:2): ‘[t]hese disasters [in informal settlements] are also costly for the affected municipalities and provincial departments, and divert resources from other urgently needed services’. As a new urban policy agenda emerges in South Africa, made up of a range of initiates across sector and interest group, cities should take proactive steps to address unsafe and inadequate living conditions. Tools by which to incrementally upgrade are now available and planning, disaster management, engineering, housing, community development, and other relevant departments must work together to decrease risk and improve informal settlements. Responding to issues around land and evictions may require a more radical agenda. This could include ‘reactively’ expropriating abandoned land and buildings or ‘proactively’ taxing vacant and underutilised land.

There have been a number of exciting advancements in the policy arena which have pushed human settlement stakeholders to think more strategically about their roles, responsibilities, and actions. These include the creation and funding of the National Upgrading Support Programme aimed at the incremental upgrading of informal settlements, upgrading targets in the national delivery agreement Outcome 8; the Urban Settlement Development Grant; the prominent place of human settlements in the Cities Support Programme; the National Planning Commission's National Development Plan; and the Integrated Urban Development Framework led by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. In addition, the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Bill and the metropolitan accreditation processes signal a clear shift to empower city governments towards the alignment of investment and decision-making in urban areas.

4. Conclusion

The outcomes of the EHP are continually critiqued by activists, non-governmental organisations, and academics. The TRAs are a particular (although not the only) point of offense that has incited attacks on municipal implementers and media flurries which berate their conditions, locations, and motivations as inhumane and unjust. In a number of circumstances where social and economic rights are jeopardised, the courts have intervened to formulate piecemeal solutions and mandate the local government to provide emergency housing.

While local housing departments may begrudgingly respond to these constitutional orders, tenuously fulfilling affected households' rights to housing, there remains a glaring gap in urban policy. A more nuanced look at the EHP and its implementation offers insights into the contest faced by local implementers in the balancing of overlapping imperatives and rights. On one side, the EHP is confronted with an existing and deeply embedded housing provision framework. On the other, it is faced with existing land rights and the broader discourses of property, development, and ‘world class’ city making that accompany it. Additional claims are staked to the limited fiscus by other developmental programmes which equally require attention and provision.

This contest, which sits beyond the limited domain of housing, combined with the vague language and parameters of the programme, has led to haphazard and indiscriminate implementation. Neither local housing officials nor court judges are alone suited or capacitated to articulate the urban policy agenda in South African cities. Improved provision of emergency housing requires shifts in broader land and housing policy approaches. Given the emerging legislative framework, which puts cities at the centre of decision-making, these changes must be negotiated and initiated on the scale of the city.

The problematic delivery of the programme serves as a prism for urban contest and an advocate for more strategic urban decision-making. This is because it dovetails a range of issues including: land, access, and equality; human rights and basic needs; commodities (as well as investment and speculation); the concurrent functions of different spheres of government and human settlement stakeholders; and questions regarding informality and informal settlements. By reading the implementation of emergency housing as a case of problematic and complex prioritisation and urban governance, rather than simply one of poor provision procedures, the emergency housing experience is enabled to speak into the emerging urban policy agenda in South Africa.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express gratitude to the Housing Development Agency for funding and overseeing this research. Additionally, the support of Mark Misselhorn from the Project Preparation Trust, Paul Hendler from Probitas, and Helen MacGregor from the Development Action Group was essential to the shaping of the research and analysis. However, all faults and criticisms are the responsibility of the author alone.

Notes

²Occupiers of 51 Olivia Road, Berea Township and 197 Main Street, Johannesburg vs. City of Johannesburg and Others 2008 (3) SA 208 (CC) (Olivia Road); also see Port Elizabeth Municipality vs. Various Occupiers 2005 (1) SA 217 (CC) (PE Municipality) (Tissington, 2010).

³Residents of Joe Slovo Community, Western Cape vs. Thubelisha Homes and Others 2009 ZACC 16 (Joe Slovo).

⁴City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality vs. Blue Moonlight Properties 39 (Pty) Ltd and Another (Lawyers for Human Rights as Amicus Curiae).

⁵It is important to note that, as per the policy, shelter provision cannot include ‘tents’ or ‘marquees’, which are seen as within the ambit of disaster relief.

⁶These numbers are based on a PowerPoint presentation entitled Human Settlements Development Grant Priorities and Business Plan 2013/14 (Revised Plans), July 2013. This is an internal document from the National Department of Human Settlements. Note that this does not include Disaster Allocation also granted to municipalities, which does not form a direct part of the EHP policy.

⁷Technically, formal housing reconstruction, as per the EHP policy, does require basic qualification and income threshold; however, this is infrequently performed.

⁸For a full list of the option categories, see the Department of Human Settlements, 2009: 32–4.

⁹This can be seen in the City of Cape Town's ‘Integrated Human Settlements Five-year Strategic Plan 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2017', where they use both incremental development area and TRA terminology.