From Under Bangkok's Bridges to Serviced Housing
Background APRIL 98

Over 780 families live in shelters under 67 bridges around Bangkok. They earn their living as labourers, vendors, junk collectors or garland sellers and are among the city's poorest.  Former governments have wanted them out of Bangkok, even though many have lived there for 3 generations.

In 1995, leaders from 20 under-bridge communities came together and formed the Under-Bridge Community Network with support from People's Organisation for Participation and the Human Settlements Foundation.  After surveying under-bridge settlements around Bangkok, they started looking for ways to improve things and formed a committee of community leaders to negotiate with the government. 

Besides living in damp, squalid conditions, under-bridge dwellers couldn't enroll their children in school or get electricity connections, both of which require a household registration number.  Interior Ministry regulations stipulate that any house which falls below legal housing standards cannot get a registration number.  Consequently, they had to pay ten times the regular rates for water and electricity, through private arrangements with nearby houses. 

After long negotiations with the National Housing Authority and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, and finally joining the Forum of the Poor, the under-bridge dwellers began to make some headway, securing household registration numbers, electricity and water connections, and an agreement to stop evictions.  They also persuaded the city to provide alternative land for resettlement, for the first 300 under-bridge families.

As part of the agreement, the under-bridge committee would choose the land.  They combed the city looking for land close to jobs and schools, and identified 3 sites, which were then bought by the NHA, who prepared layouts, and is now installing infrastructure.  Each family will get a 48 square metre plot on a long term lease.  The monthly rent is still being negotiated, the people are holding out for a maximum 500 Baht.  Meanwhile, a special committee is working to organise the other 47 under-bridge communities.  

 

"I'm proud of the changes we have brought about.  Before, we were isolated, but now we have made a strong organisation of Under-Bridge communities, we have made friends who support us, we've gotten water supply and electric metres and registered to vote and put our children in school."

Khun Santi, leader at the Makasan Under-Bridge Community

 

APRIL 99

Under-Bridge Community Network Update

Exposure trip to India
With support from ACHR's TAP Programme, a group of 10 Underbridge community dwellers went on an exposure trip to Kanpur, India last year to attend a model house exhibition put on by the Kanpur Slum Dwellers Federation

Started Daily Savings
The group was inspired by the Mahila Milan daily savings schemes they saw poor women managing in India.  Back in Bangkok, they have set up housing savings schemes in earnest, since many won’t have enough money to build new houses at the new site, and can’t afford to take big loans.  Some groups save daily or weekly, using the Indian idea of collecting deposits door-to-door and more frequent meetings to keep track of each other.  Now, even kids and students are helping out with the savings collections.

     Planning Affordable Houses  
Every weekend, the communities have worked with a team of young architects to plan how to build houses very cheaply at the new land, exploring such ideas as incremental building, recycling of old materials and unconventional building materials. 

Model House Exhibition 
To present their plans and ideas to the public, the network held a model house exhibition in April, which was attended by government officials, NGOs and community people from all over Thailand, and from India, Cambodia and Philippines, as well.

Here’s the update from Pi Moan (pic) and Khun Nag, Underbridge Network leaders, on what this energetic group has been doing over the past year.

Underbridge Exposure to India

Daily Savings Bombay

Housing Exhibition Bangkok