Over 20,000 families in the federation are at
some stage in the process of acquiring secure land - saving, forming
homeowners associations, identifying land, negotiating prices, sorting
out titles, planning layouts, exploring loan sources.
Land acquisition is the topic numero uno in a country with no
intermediate forms of secure tenure for the landless poor, where
skyrocketing urban land prices have made it practically impossible for
the poor to afford a legal home and relegated half of the Philippines
urban population to a hopeless and impoverishing cycle of squatting and
evictions.
The government has
provided housing for some families evicted to clear land for development
projects, most in conventional, contractor-built relocation colonies in
remote areas. But families forced to occupy these projects find them
poorly designed and built, poorly serviced, too expensive, too far from
jobs, schools and vital support systems. Many have been driven back into
inner-city slums to survive. While such projects may work for some, for
the many who cannot afford or survive in them, there is an urgent need
for other options. Instead of shouting at the government and waiting for
better In all this, one message
is clear ...
Poor people can develop communities and
build houses more cheaply and more efficiently than the state or any
private developers. All they need is land.
It costs the government, for example,
about 250,000 Pesos to build a 22-sq. mt. dwelling in a relocation
colony, while the federation can build a house twice as big for 60,000
Pesos.
And when it comes to "horizontal development" of roads,
drainage, electricity and water supply, what developers do for 550 Pesos
per square meter and NHA does for 250 Pesos, people can do themselves
for 50 - 150 Pesos.
Here's a rundown on what the
Homeless People's Federation has been doing towards getting land and
housing:
1.
Saving for land and houses
All cities in the federation run special housing savings
schemes, in which individual families have saved over 7 million Pesos.
2.
Designing community layouts and more affordable houses
Using design workshops, model house exhibits and
exchanges to sharpen people's building skills and increase people's
design options.
3.
Understanding the legal aspects of land acquisition
through training in the legal aspects of acquiring land,
accessing finance programs and dealing with land title and land
conversion problems.
4.
Negotiating with private land owners
Researching ownership records and negotiating with
private land-owners to buy land already occupied by settlements, at
affordable rates.
5.
Surveying unused government owned land as potential housing sites
creating an inventory of potential relocation sites in 18
cities which work for poor people living in slums in problem areas.
6.
Exploring other land and housing options
in collaboration with the national and
municipal governments, private landowners, finance institutions,
international organizations and NGOs, to develop comprehensive,
city-wide land and housing options which work for the poor and for the
city, such as:
* Regularizing
settlements on government land : in areas where land is not in
danger zones or earmarked for development, through transfer of title,
subsidized sale or long-term leasehold.
* Regularizing settlements on
private land through subsidized land purchase, government
supported tax breaks to land-owners, negotiated land-sharing
agreements or re-blocking.
* Creation of new "people's
towns"
on free government land, for relocation to government sites identified
and developed by people, for settling re-locatees and newcomers.
* Financing relocation and
community development through cost sharing with
private land-owners who stand to profit by clearing and developing
valuable land occupied by poor settlements
