4 more cases of
UPDF loans for housing

1. Housing loans to 123 families evicted to the old government resettlement colony at Toul Sambo

The Municipality was quick to see the collaborative housing process at Akphivat Mean Cheay as being a convenient supplement to it's own development plans for the city of Phnom Penh.  In December 1999, a second batch of loans was made to families being relocated to Toul Sambo, a government resettlement colony 24 kilometers outside the city.  Toul Sambo was nobody's idea of a glorious second case for UPDF, being so far from the city and so short on community participation.  Nobody was keen to move there, but when federation members from several inner-city communities were evicted, they had little choice but to take up the city's offer of free resettlement plots  out there at Toul Sambo, where living conditions were pretty bad.  UPDF responded to their need with several rounds of small housing loans.  

Meeting at Toul Sambo 2001

In the first stage, 37 families took small loans of between $200 and $400 to build houses, at 8% interest over a 5-year repayment period.  Eventually, 123 families at Toul Sambo, evicted from seven communities around the city, took housing loans from UPDF.  Most families began repaying their loans in the end of November 2000, in small, daily installments of 1,000 Riels (about US$ 25 cents), according to systems set up and managed by their savings groups in the community. 

2.  Housing loans to 111 roadside squatters who relocated to land they chose at Kok Khleang 1

Toek La'ok 14 was a community of 111 poor families who'd been living on the roadside along three sides of the National Pediatric Hospital since the 1980s.  There were complaints that the community created unsanitary conditions around the hospital and interfered with the drainage system, and in 1997, the Municipality posted eviction notices.  Within a year, this tightly-organized community had begun a long process of negotiation with the hospital, district authorities and the Municipality, which led to another collaborative resettlement agreement, similar to the Akphivat Mean Cheay.

As part of the agreement, the Municipality and the hospital's donor (World Vision) agreed to share the cost of buying alternative land, which would be chosen by the people and developed by UNCHS.  The community members would build their own houses using loans from the UPDF, young architects at the URC would assist in the developing affordable house designs and community layout plans, and SUPF would assist in negotiations and open the process as learning for other settlements.  The land the people chose for resettlement is at Kok Khleang (1), six kilometers from their old community and close to a bustling market in the airport suburb of Pochentong.  The community haggled the land-owner down to a selling price of $4.54 per s.m., which brought the land cost to US$ 35,000, of which the Municipality paid $10,000 and World Vision paid $25,000.  Each family has 42.5 square meter plots, and there is space for a community center and playground.  The land sale agreement was signed in June 1999, and by August 2000, the new land had been filled, four wells had been dug, and toilets, roads, drains had been built.  By November 2000, all 111 families had moved in. 

Women of Toul Sambo

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Housing Loans

Four more Cases of UPDF Loans for Housing

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2. Income Generation Loans
    Fishing Communities

3. District Loans
    for Income Generation

4. Agricultural Loans
     to distant communities

5.  Environmental
      Improvement Grants

6.   A City Development 
      Strategy  - CDS

7.  Upgrading  Communities

Relaxing at Kok Khleang 1

3.  Housing loans to 165 families evicted from Basaac and resettled at the Prey Tituy colony

Nearly 3,000 families lived in the swampy, sprawling river-front community of Basaac, the city's largest informal settlement.  For many years, SUPF has been active in the area, with savings and credit, surveys, toilet-building, house and bridge-building.  A lot of energy has gone into exploring on-site redevelopment options for Basaac, including land-sharing, reblocking and upgrading.  

These ideas have been presented to the local and national governments, but unfortunately the city's master plan for developing Basaac left no room for negotiation or housing for the poor. 

  While the city remained firm in its resolve to evict all of Basaac's residents, it has taken steps to provide alternative land for resettling all those people.  

At the Akphivat Mean Cheay  inauguration in April 2000, the Prime Minister pledged US$ 200,000 for purchasing such land, and a month later, the Municipality (with some community involvement) identified and purchased a 12.5 hectare site at Prey Tituy, about 15 kilometers from the city.  By September 2000, the land had been subdivided into 469 plots (120 square meters each) which were assigned by lottery to families from two Basaac settlements.  As part of the relocation deal, the UNCHS provided pit-latrines, roads and drainage (by community contract) and 165 families took UPDF loans to help build new houses.  

4.  Housing loans to 120 families evicted after a fire destroyed their rooftop community at Block Tan Paa

  Over 1,500 people in 278 households living in the Block Tan Paa rooftop community were made homeless when a fire engulfed their homes in March 2002.  Besides losing their houses and all their belongings, the people found themselves camping out on the street down below, forbidden by the Municipality to return to their rooftop and facing the prospect of being dumped in one of the government's more remote resettlement colonies 25 kms from the city.  But this strong and highly organized community decided to reject the city's resettlement offer and searched themselves for land which was closer to sources of employment.  After a big struggle, they persuaded the Municipality to purchase the land they identified at Kraing Angkrang 2, close to Pochentong Market, for which they had bargained the land-owner down to a rock-bottom selling price of $2.80 per s.m.  

Because only minimal UNCHS support was available for infrastructure at the new site, the community worked with friends from the Orangi Pilot Project in Pakistan to design a "cluster" layout plan with 300 plots which will allow them to gradually construct their own low-cost underground sewage system.  To save the high cost of filling the land, a small flood-control dike was built around the perimeter of the site, using earth taken from what will eventually become an oxidation pond for treating sewage.  A first group of 110 families will take small UPDF loans to construct new houses.  

Next   Using the fund to break the isolation of individual communities through collective projects