Oct 6, 2009 - society organizations and the private sector to improve the housing conditions of ... Moreover, many âpermanentâ migrants maintain their registration in their ... Cheap food, cheap transport and cheap housing provided by the ...
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Self-Help Housing in Bangkok Yap Kioe Sheng and Koen De Wandeler1 Abstract This article analyzes past and present efforts of government agencies, civil society organizations and the private sector to improve the housing conditions of some one million urban poor who live in informal settlements in Bangkok, Thailand. It gives special attention to the current programme, Baan Mankong that supports community-based organizations in informal settlements to build citywide networks that enable the communities to negotiate better deals with land owners for the lease or purchase of land, and to assist in the improvement of housing and infrastructure. It finds that the programme, while effective, also has some limitations and concludes that Thailand needs a national housing policy that promotes adequate housing for all.
1. The Context Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, has grown rapidly over the past decades, in parallel with its economic development. While Thailand has always been one of the world’s largest rice exporters, the economic take-off during the 1980s and 1990s was driven mainly by export-oriented industries located in and around Bangkok. The Bangkok Metropolitan Area (BMA), managed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (also BMA), had a population of around 2.1 million inhabitants in 1960. Official records estimated its population in 2005 at over 6.6 million (UN-ESA, 2008). The actual situation is, however, more complex. Bangkok as urbanized area stretches beyond the BMA over parts of at least five other provinces: Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Nakhon Pathom and Samut Sakhon. One could therefore add the more than 4 million inhabitants of their urbanized areas to Bangkok’s population. This would, result in a total urban population for the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) of more than 10 million inhabitants. With 10 million inhabitants among a total population of some 63 million and a total urban population of 20.4 million in the country, Bangkok is clearly a primate city.
-- Figure 1. Bangkok Metropolitan Region -The level of urbanization of Thailand (32.3 per cent in 2005) is below the Asian average of 39.7 per cent (UN-ESA 2008), but this figure does not reflect the real situation. Much of the urbanization in Thailand and in Bangkok occurs outside municipal boundaries and the concerned population is counted as rural. Second, because there is a considerable seasonal migration, the population size varies significantly throughout the year. Moreover, many “permanent” migrants maintain their registration in their village and are administratively not counted as Bangkok residents. As the country’s economic centre, Bangkok is the preferred destination for rural-urban migrants, the place to find work and earn an income, and urban income forms a growing 1
The authors like to thank Karin Andersson for her comments on earlier versions of the article.
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part of the rural household income in Thailand. Labour migrants come predominantly from the poor North-East, the most populous of the country’s six regions. Facilitated by good transport and communication infrastructure and services, migration is often circular or seasonal, and people frequently return to their village to work on the land or support their relatives. Some migrants become daily or temporary labourers in the manufacturing sector and the construction industry, but many end up working in the large urban informal sector of Bangkok. Close links exist between the formal and the informal sector in Bangkok, as the informal sector is a supplier of labour, goods and services to the formal sector. Cheap food, cheap transport and cheap housing provided by the informal sector are essential to keep Bangkok competitive in the global economy.
2. Slums of Bangkok In 1977, Angel et al. (1977, p.83) wrote that there was no housing shortage in Bangkok; everybody in this city is housed in one way or the other, and there are no people sleeping in the street. This may be somewhat of an exaggeration, as a 1994 survey found more than 2,500 people living under a bridge in 78 locations in Bangkok (quoted in Senanuch 2004, 18). However, Angel was right in the sense that Bangkok has found a way to house most of the urban poor. The first comprehensive survey of slums in Bangkok was conducted in 1985. It found 845 slums and 166 squatter settlements2 in Bangkok and parts of surrounding provinces, with an estimated population of one million persons (Pornchokchai 1985, pp.1-2). Pornchokchai (n.d. p.51) estimated that 1.1 million slum dwellers and squatters lived in the BMA in 2000, while 390,000 lived in the BMR outside the BMA. A 2001 survey, on the other hand, found 283,566 households living in 1,604 informal settlements in the BMA alone (CODI 2005, p.1).3
Table 1. Estimated Slum Population of Thailand (2000) Province BMA Nonthaburi Pathum Thani Samut Prakan Samut Sakhon Nakhon Pathom BMR
Informal settlements 796 60 93 207 62 30 1248
Slums 671 50 65 194 58 29 1067
Squatter settlements 125 10 28 13 4 1 181
Housing units 137,806 4,712 10,637 29,792 5,490 2,653 191,090
Households 196,354 6,994 17,099 41,456 8,838 3,038 273,779
Estimated slum population 1,100,000 35,000 85,500 207,300 44,200 15,200 1,487,200
Source: Pornchokchai, n.d. p.52. In the spirit of Thai culture that emphasizes harmony and avoids open conflict in society, the urban poor in search of a place to live do not organize themselves to invade vacant land. They rather seek a landowner’s oral or written consent to occupy a piece of vacant land and build their houses through self-help. Many landowners agree because it would 2
The article will refer to slums and squatter settlements as “informal settlements”. The disparity in the number of informal settlements and households in the BMA may be explained by the use of different criteria to define a settlement. Furthermore, households may report to have split, if this would entitle them to more than one house or plot. 3
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embarrass people to see urban poor living on the street as pavement dwellers (Senanuch 2004, p. 21). Society tries to accommodate the poor, at least as long as vested interests are not threatened. Many landowners with unused land do not mind accommodating those who seek land to build their house but cannot afford to buy it, as long as the occupancy is temporary and the landowner can terminate the arrangement at short notice. The poor may pay a minimal rent; but the land may also be provided free of charge. When asked to vacate the land, the residents are expected to do so in the same spirit of social harmony, i.e. without protest or compensation. As there is an explicit or tacit consent by the landowner for the settlement, most residents are not really squatters in the legal sense. Thus, informal settlements in Bangkok (called slums, crowded communities or urban poor communities) are somewhat different from those in many other cities of the world. They are scattered all over the city, usually on relatively small plots of land, in between other land uses, including high-income residential areas. Their average size is less than 200 houses. Most settlements meet all five criteria that define a slum: insecure residential status, poor structural quality of housing, inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and other infrastructure, and overcrowding (UN-HABITAT 2003, p.12). Because they are not allowed to build permanent structures, most houses are made of wood, corrugated iron sheets and scrap materials. As a temporary structure, the selfbuilt house lacks a building permit and does not comply with building regulations and is therefore still unauthorized from a regulatory perspective. Environmental conditions tend to be poor, as the settlements are usually built on low-lying, unfilled land which floods during the rainy season. Many houses are built on stilts over stagnant water full of refuse, with wooden walkways between the houses and to the main road. Due to the informal nature of the settlements, the authorities are not inclined to provide basic infrastructure (except for electricity). However, network infrastructure (water supply, drains, roads) is rarely far away, because the settlements are relatively small and scattered between other land uses. Slum dwellers make informal arrangements with nearby residents or landowners for the supply of water, access to public roads etc. Slums are found both on private and on public land, but this distinction does not affect the level of land tenure security. Some public agencies treat their landholdings as commercial assets for possible rent or sale and will evict slum dwellers without hesitation, while some private landowners are very accommodating. The Crown Property Bureau (CPB) is a major landowner in Bangkok, but there is no information about the exact size of its property in the city (Ouyyanont 2008, p. 183). A 1988 survey by the National Housing Authority found more than 100 slums on CPB land (Yap 1992a, p. 34). Many settlements can be found on land owned by the State Railways of Thailand (SRT), the Port Authority of Thailand (PAT) and the Royal Irrigation Department (RID). Across the country, some 107,500 households live on land belonging to these three agencies (Kongrut 2008). Many of them are in fact squatters, because the settlements were developed without the consent or even against the will of the land-owner. The agencies do not generally approve of the settlement on land along the railway lines (owned by the SRT) and on canal banks (owned by the RID), because the strips of land are needed for infrastructure development, maintenance works and emergency access. They may tolerate the settlements as long as they do not pose an immediate problem, but their attitude is not accommodating.
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The distinction between land-rental slums and squatter settlements in Bangkok is not very precise. Slums often develop on land which is unsuitable or too expensive to develop at that time, due to its small size, its awkward shape or its lack of public access. However, when land prices increase, it may become worthwhile to develop even such plots, and the landowner will tell the residents to leave. Once the landowner tells the occupants to leave, that notice turns a land-rental slum into a squatter settlement “under the threat of eviction”. Some slums remain in this category for many years, without any actual eviction attempt, but others are razed within days; arson may help to speed up the process. It is important to note that not all residents of informal settlements are poor and that not all urban poor live as house-owner-occupants in informal settlements; many live in formal and informal rental housing. Moreover, many slum dwellers and squatters do not own their house, but rent it. There are several reasons why the urban poor live as renters in informal settlements:
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Rapid economic development in Bangkok has resulted in several construction booms. It is increasingly difficult to find vacant land in a suitable location to build new self-help housing. The alternative is to rent in an existing settlement.
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Many families lost their house to moneylenders during the 1997 financial crisis, and more are expected to meet the same fate during the current financial crisis. The family may still occupy the same house, but are now forced to pay rent.
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Many urban poor are temporary or seasonal migrants who come to work in the city for a limited period of time and prefer to rent accommodation rather than build or buy a house.
Renters are often the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable. When a settlement is upgraded or regularized, it’s the house owners who generally seek improved security of tenure, better infrastructure. However, the improvements may not be in the interests of the renters who will see their rents increase when conditions improve. A community organization may exclude renters as beneficiaries, if they are considered a burden. If the community decides to include the renters as beneficiaries, some renters may still opt out, because they cannot or do not want to own a house. They may not have the money to pay or prefer to remain mobile to be able to move to where the jobs are.
3. Government interventions Thailand does not have an explicit long-term national housing policy and it has not had one for quite some time (Na Thalang 2007, p.4; Prachuabmoh 2007, pp. 10-11). With regard to housing the urban poor, successive governments have generally been reactive rather than pro-active. They allocate funds for programmes to assist slum dwellers who are faced with eviction or who have been evicted (such as the public rental housing programme), but there are very few attempts to prevent the development of slums and squatter settlements by setting aside urban land for housing the poor. Moreover, politicians often use programmes such as the Baan Ua Arthorn programme (discussed later) merely for their own political and financial gains.4 Public rental housing
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Past governments have not hesitated to provide strong support to the real estate sector, if only because many real estate companies provide financial support to political parties.
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In 1973, the government established the National Housing Authority (NHA) whose main responsibility was to develop walk-up rental apartments for low-income households. In the 1970s and 1980s, NHA produced some 20,000 apartments with sizes of 27-52 m2 and a modest monthly rent of Baht 300 (around $12 in those days) in Bangkok. However, the programme could not keep pace with the growth of the slum population, let alone replace the existing slums, and regularly ran out of money. In the end, the programme was abandoned, because it proved to be unsustainable and ineffective (Yap et al 1993). Many low-income households found the apartments too small, too inflexible, and too far from the public road to be suitable for income-generating activities. A 1992 study on lowincome rental housing in Bangkok found that there was a strong demand for the apartments by middle-income households, because of their location in the city and their low rents. As a result, many apartments had been occupied by others than the target groups, although the quality of the buildings is rather low, as rental revenue does not cover NHA’s costs of maintenance and repair (Yap et al 1993, pp.13-14). Slum improvement and sites-and-services schemes In the 1970s and 1980s, the government introduced new approaches that aimed at regularizing and upgrading informal settlements and at emulating the development of informal settlements in the form of sites-and-services schemes. These approaches recognized the importance of self-help housing and the right of the urban poor to land for housing. Between 1978 and 1991, the NHA upgraded 132 slum settlements with a population of 51,000 households in Thailand (Yap 1992b, p.15). However, Giles (2003) argues that these approaches lacked the full support of politicians and were therefore doomed to fail. Most landowners did not consider land tenure regularization an acceptable option. They had given their land to the slum dwellers on a temporary basis and they did not want to lose their property to the urban poor. While NHA improved the living conditions in the slums, insecurity of land tenure remained and the people could still face eviction. How many upgraded settlements have been evicted, is not known, but that it happened is well known (Yap 1992b, p.15). NHA’s sites-and-services schemes, often resettlement schemes for evicted slum dwellers, were also only a partial success, because the NHA was rarely able to acquire and develop sufficient land to make an impact on the low-income housing market. It could only acquire land in the outskirts of the city, too far from the centres of employment. As a result, the plots often fell in the hands of speculators and better-off households. With the expansion of Bangkok over the past decades, some sites-andservices schemes have, too late, become attractive locations. Failing to solve the problem Despite all its well-intended efforts, the NHA did not have much success in addressing the housing problem of the urban poor. It added a sizable number of low-cost units to the housing stock in Bangkok, but the needs and the demand always exceeded the supply, generating problems of allocation of benefits. The programmes did not only fall short of their targets, but politicians intervened to divert the benefits to others than the neediest. Politicians also seem to have used NHA’s land purchases and house construction programmes as opportunities for corruption. Boonyabancha (2001, p.10) notes that the delivery system of subsidized welfare-based housing for the urban poor has too many problems. She mentions the lack of understanding of the lives of the poor, the complex and time-consuming procedures with
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too many steps and the costly solutions that lead to corruption. They cause the system to miss the target groups and delivers housing to groups that are not as poor.
4. Non-Governmental Assistance As government proved to be largely ineffective in improving the living and housing conditions of the urban poor, NGOs stepped in to work with urban poor communities and to empower them to gain access to urban land and housing. Land sharing In the 1980s, a new approach was introduced in Bangkok: land sharing. NGOs developed this approach as an alternative to forced evictions that could produce a winwin situation for the land owner and the urban poor community. Land sharing meant that an urban poor community faced with eviction shared the land it occupied with the landowner who would be able to develop his or her share of the land for commercial use. Rabé (2006, 109-110) lists the pre-conditions for a land sharing agreement:
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A booming property market which encourages landowners to make concessions with occupants of developable land;
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A strong and cohesive community that can present a unified front in negotiations with the landowner;
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A well-established community that over time has acquired bargaining power due to tenure rights, political connections and alliances between residents;
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Third-party intermediation that can broker and enforce a compromise agreement between landowner and community;
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A sufficiently large land area that can accommodate the needs and interests of land owner and community, while remaining more or less within local regulations;
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A financial arrangement that keeps land and housing affordable for the residents, and is profitable for the landowner or developer without excessive public subsidy.
With such strict conditions, the approach can be effective in a few cases only, and because circumstances differ from one settlement to the next, the outcome also varies. In the best case, an entire community can be resettled on one part of the land, while the owner can profitably develop the other part. Sometimes, renters and the very poor leave the settlement, because they can not afford the negotiated agreement, thereby making it easier for the others to reach a land-sharing deal with the landowner. Depending on the size of the land, the community can build its own houses or has to engage a commercial contractor to build rowhouses. In some cases, the developer builds apartment buildings on the entire plot and allocates a number of units to the households from the slum. This is the least attractive option for the residents and often also the least successful. The government played a limited role in the land sharing projects; it was usually the landowner, the developer or their representative that negotiated with the urban poor community, with an NGO as intermediary. The NGO provided assistance to the community for the design of the new settlement and of the houses. The NHA would provide infrastructure subsidies or housing loans, and ensured that the settlement was exempted from building regulations. This was necessary, because the land of the
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community was sometimes so small that the slum households had to resettle in threestorey rowhouses on 24m2 plots. Resettlement The concept of land sharing worked well, if the landowner did not want to be seen evicting poor families, or if the physical and social circumstances allowed for an easy partitioning of the land. As land values continued to rise, landowners realized that they could make substantially more profit, if they kept the entire plot of land. This led them to offer relatively large compensations to urban poor communities, if they vacated the entire land. Some amounts of compensation allowed the community to make a down payment on the purchase of land elsewhere or build houses in an NHA resettlement scheme. Resettlement with compensation often occurred after negotiations for a land sharing arrangement had broken down. The community would start looking for an affordable alternative piece of land, preferably not too far away, where it could relocate. Such land was usually another plot with limited or no development potential and therefore lowly priced. With the compensation from the landowner, subsidies and loans from the NHA and material support from NGOs, the community, or what was left of it, would build its new houses through self-help construction. As this was a formal settlement, the households could now obtain legal connections to water supply, drains and electricity. Once urban poor communities across Bangkok learned about the options, they proposed them to their landowner, first land sharing, then resettlement with compensation. However, many urban poor communities lacked the cohesiveness and the strength to negotiate a deal. Here too, the very poor households would sometimes take whatever compensation was offered and leave for another slum before an agreement was reached. This could make it easier for the remaining households to reach a land sharing or resettlement agreement with a landowner, but made the solution less inclusive. Empowering communities The most important characteristic of the land sharing and resettlement approaches was the primary role the community played in the process. These were not turnkey projects. The community had to organize itself and negotiate a solution with a landowner. In case of resettlement, it had to find an alternative site. Community members had to negotiate a new layout and new house designs. The work of the NGO was critical: it supported the organization of the community and it provided advice. However, its ultimate goal was the long-term empowerment of the community, unlike the government whose only goal was to re-house as many families as possible. Land sharing and resettlement with compensation became more difficult as Bangkok experienced rapid economic growth from the mid-1980s, which resulted in a reduction in extreme poverty, but also in more rural-urban migration to the centres of industrial employment in and around Bangkok.
5. The private sector In the late 1980s and 1990s, excited researchers and practitioners reported that Bangkok had become a truly enabling environment for the private sector to meet the housing demands of low-income groups (Dowall 1989; Angel 1990). Innovations such as core housing, mass production and cross-subsidies enabled the private sector to supply a product that was profitable, that met building regulations, and that was affordable for lower income groups with access to housing loans. The houses were really cheap and
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developers made every attempt to cut costs, but at least they provided lower-middle income households with access to homeownership. This downward trend was partly made possible by the Government Housing Bank which reduced interest rates for home buyers, thereby attracting customers from private commercial banks. This led to more competition in the housing finance sector and it benefitted homebuyers across the income spectrum. With cheaper mortgages and increasing incomes, it became interesting for private developers to go down-market. The Increased purchasing power of the lower-middle class also persuaded banks and finance institutions to extend loans to developers for low-cost housing. Low-cost houses Initially, private developers discovered the lower-middle-income family who could afford land in an informal land subdivision. To meet this demand, they designed private-sector sites-and-services schemes for self-help housing (Angel & Pornchokchai 1987, p.4.7). Another low-cost product was the core house, similar to what the public sector supplied in some sites-and-services schemes. Rather than providing only a site with services, it provided a one-room rowhouse where the owner-occupant could live, while incrementally expanding and improving the core house into a full-fledged dwelling. The original single-storied dwelling had a built-up area of 30-70 m2 on plots of 64-100 m2 (Angel & Chuated 1987). The houses were actually designed and constructed to be transformed and developed incrementally by the owner-occupants.5 The house was a concrete post-and-beam structure with brick walls. Some owners would leave the post-and-beam structure and roof in place, but transform the interior by adding walls and rooms; others also added one or more floors. After some time, the units were unrecognizable. Each owner had changed the interior and exterior of the original unit to adapt it to his or her needs. This was a true form of self-help housing. Low-cost condominiums By the middle of the 1990s, the latter type of housing was no longer commercially feasible, and private sector developers moved into the low-cost condominium market. Most of these were five-storey walk-up buildings6 of apartments with a floor area of 3040 m2. The unit consists of one large room with an attached bathroom/toilet, with the option to add a stove and kitchen sink on the balcony. The unit offers a small opportunity for self-help development, as the owner-occupants can partition the room the way they see fit. It is not uncommon to find a shop or a beauty salon on the upper floor of the building. Given the limited space, some occupants expand the living area onto the balcony and build storage space even beyond the balcony.
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Transformative housing is well-known in Southeast Asia. Upon delivery, “Chinese shophouses” (one-, two- or three-storey multi-functional rowhouses) consist merely of walls, floor and roof without partitioning which the owner-occupants are expected to adapt to fit their needs (Chulasai 1985). A company in Bangkok is currently marketing a product for low-income home buyers called Yourchoice, which is a bare house structure to be completed by the owner. It sees selfbuilding home-buyers as their target group (Bangkok Post, 22 April 2009).
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Five-storey buildings were popular with developers, because district authorities could issue building permit for such buildings, while higher buildings required the approval by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration itself, which had lengthier, costlier and stricter procedures.
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It is difficult to say how many low-income households actually moved from slum housing to low-cost condominiums and to what extent low-cost condominiums reduced the housing problems of the urban poor. Most studies focused on the sales number rather than on the income of buyers and occupants. While low-cost condominiums targeted lower-middle and low-income households, they became objects of speculation for higher income groups. With ever rising real estate prices, it became profitable to buy one or more low-cost apartments in a condominium, and either to sell them with profit before mortgage repayments started or to let them, possible to low-income households, while waiting for the value to increase. In order to make them more affordable, developers situated their projects far from the city centre and away from the main road, where land prices were relatively low. However, this increased commuting costs for the residents who had to rely on public transport to reach their place of work or school. Moreover, they would be stuck for hours Bangkok’s notorious traffic jams. For low-income earners, wasted time often results in wasted income opportunities and therefore loss of income. As speculative demand continued, the supply responded blindly, until a study in 1995 found that there was an immense oversupply of apartments (Yap and Kirinpanu 2000, pp.17-18). In the middle of 1997, the real-estate market and much of the economy in Thailand came crashing down, resulting in the Asian financial crisis. Ten years later, there is still an oversupply of low-cost apartments, especially in locations with low accessibility.
6. UCDO and CODI Before the crisis hit, policy-makers and practitioners had started to look for ways to address urban poverty and low-income housing problems on a national scale rather than through one project at a time. In the early 1990s, the National Economic and Social Development Board asked a study team to develop proposals for a large-scale programme for housing the urban poor. The study included community leaders, housing activists, slum federations, NGOs and government agencies with an interest in urban poverty. It recommended the establishment of a revolving fund for urban community development work and low-interest loans to community organizations for income generation and housing (Boonyabancha, 2003, p.1). In 1992, the government established the Urban Community Development Office (UCDO) and provided it with an initial capital of Baht 1,250 million (US$30 million) for an Urban Poor Development Fund (Boonyabancha, 2003, p.5). The purpose of the Fund was to extend loans to community savings groups for income generation, the purchase of land, and the construction or improvement of housing. Savings groups as such were not a new idea. Residents of informal settlements need to organize themselves into community-based organizations such as savings groups to be eligible for assistance from the government. As the initiative starts in different ways sometimes involving a NGO or a government agency, its form, composition, objectives and rules differ from one savings group to another. Senanuch (2004, pp.105-115) found that people learned about savings groups from a community organizer or from savings groups in other communities. Since mutual trust is critical for the successful operations of a group, members tend to know each other well and consider each other credit-worthy because of a more or less regular income. Most members are women, because they control the finances of households. Members elect a
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committee of 7 to 15 persons to manage the savings group, but usually only a few are active. The committee members are volunteers who do not receive a payment. The innovation that UCDO introduced was to link community saving groups into networks in a city or a province, and to extend the loans to the networks for onward lending to the community-based groups. The networks provided a stronger financial basis for the savings groups that had been hard hit by the 1997 financial crisis (Boonyabancha 2003. pp.13-14). The networks also addressed a weakness of earlier approaches: the isolation of each community in its negotiations with a landowner for land-sharing, slum improvement or resettlement. Although NGOs provide an institutional memory, each community had to re-discover the best way to gain access to urban land and housing (Boonyabancha, 1999, p.2). Community groups in a network can share experiences and jointly develop solutions. Networks can link communities with the same landowner or affected by same development project. They can help each other negotiate with a landowner in case of an eviction, and find an alternative to eviction. Thus, networks strengthen the negotiating power of communities in their dealings with land owners and local governments (Boonyabancha, 2003, p.14). By 2000, 950 community savings groups had been formed in 53 provinces. UCDO had provided loans and technical support to 47 housing projects involving 6,400 households. It had extended grants for improvements in infrastructure and living conditions in 796 communities, benefiting 68,208 families. It had established more than 100 community networks (Boonyabancha, 2002, p. 4). In the same year, UCDO merged with the Rural Development Fund to become the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI). While UCDO was a special project under the NHA, CODI became an independent public organization, which gave it much greater autonomy to mobilize resources (Boonyabancha 2003, p. 24). Like UCDO before it, CODI has a strong NGO-style of operating. It avoids the pitfalls of the bureaucracy and maintains flexibility in its approach. This is essential, because community-driven housing programmes cannot apply pre-fabricated solutions, but will rely on the inventiveness of the people to develop options and find solutions. Thus, the outcome of a project is not necessarily known beforehand. It will emerge from the work undertaken in the project.
7. Baan Mankong In 2003, the Thaksin government announced two new programmes to solve the urban low-income housing problems in Thailand within a period of five years (2003-2007). The programmes were part of several populist initiatives by Prime Minister Thaksin to reduce poverty in urban and rural areas of Thailand:
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The Baan Ua Arthorn (“we-care housing”)7 programme of direct house construction by the NHA. The NHA designs, constructs and sells ready-to-occupy low-cost houses and apartments at subsidized rates to lower-income households who can afford the “rent-to-own” payments of US$ 25 – 37 per month. Initially, its
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Ua Arthorn refers to a traditional form of social support in Thai society by which people help each other without expecting to receive anything in return.
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target was the production of 600,000 subsidized low-cost housing units, but was later lowered to 300,000 units.8
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The Baan Mankong (“secure housing”) programme to be implemented by CODI. The target was to improve housing, living and tenure security for 300,000 households in 2,000 poor communities in 200 Thai cities and towns within five years (Boonyabancha, 2005, p.24-25).
For the Baan Mankong programme, CODI developed the UCDO approach of networked saving groups by broadening the partnerships and aiming for a city-wide impact. Each network of community groups establishes partnerships with local government and with NGOs, professionals and universities in the city. The partnerships survey the urban poor communities of the city and draft a plan of practical city-wide solutions to their land and housing problems (Boonyabancha, 2005, pp.25-26). The programme does not impose solutions, but encourages communities to develop a solution that is tailored to their needs, priorities and possibilities. However, they can be broadly classified into three existing options: upgrading, re-blocking and relocation:
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Upgrading: Houses, lanes, roads and open spaces are improved, but the lay-out of the settlement and the shape and size of the plots remain unchanged.
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Re-blocking: In settlements that are difficult to improve due to an irregular lay-out, some or all plots and lanes are rearranged (re-blocked). A completely re-blocked settlement provides residents with more space, but it is an expensive solution.
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Relocation: If upgrading or re-blocking are impossible, the community will look for a new site that is as close as possible to the current site to minimize the costs of resettlement. Relocation can be nearby (within 5 kms) or far (beyond 5 kms).
In order to gain security of land tenure, a community will try to buy or lease their land. Secure tenure is negotiated one community at a time and the outcome depends on the particular circumstances, but the emphasis is always on communal (rather than individual) tenure. The programme provides infrastructure subsidies and soft loans for land purchase and housing development (Boonyabancha 2005, pp.27-31). Loans are only provided to groups that have a proven record of sustained saving and of managing of a savings group; the loan application must be made by the group, not by individuals. Collective saving for housing is a means to mobilize the resources that are available within the community, but also to reinforce confidence and the spirit of self-help and to develop financial management skills in the group. The group has to take responsibility as a group for the repayment of loans for housing construction or land purchase (CODI 2004, pp. 3, 5).
8. Baan Mankong in Bangkok Documents from CODI (2008) report on 22 Baan Mankong projects in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region: 14 projects in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area, 2 projects in Nonthaburi, 3 projects in Pathum Thani and 3 projects in Samut Prakan. These 8
The programme has been plagued by problems similar to those of the public rental housing programme discussed earlier. It suffers heavy financial losses as it cannot recover the costs. It has problems reaching the target group and there have been allegations of corruption. Because it is seen as one of the flagship programmes of the Thaksin government, the current government is in no hurry to assist the NHA in solving the problems. At the time of printing of the article, it was still too early to gauge the outcome.
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settlements may not form a representative sample of all slum and squatter settlements in Bangkok, but the following analysis of available data gives an idea of the outcome of the programme in Bangkok. The settlements had a variety of landowners: 8 settlements were on private land, 5 on land of the Crown Property Bureau (CPB), 2 on land of the Treasure Department (TD) and one each on land of the Royal Irrigation Department (RID), the Port Authority of Thailand (PAT), the State Railways of Thailand (SRT), and of a temple. Three settlements had two landowners: a private landowner and the BMA, and the SRT and a temple respectively. It is generally acknowledged that the TD and the CPB are the most accommodating agencies for slums dwellers. CODI signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the TD and the CPB for the lease of their land to urban poor communities on a 30-year, renewable basis. The PAT, the SRT and the RID are less accommodating.9 They may tolerate the settlements as long as they do not pose an immediate problem. Recently, SRT and CODI also signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the lease of SRT land, but the SRT leases the land to CODI which sub-leases it to each of the communities for 15 or 30 years (Anzorena, 2008, p.70). There is a clear relation between the landowner and the settlement option the community and CODI achieved in the Baan Mankong programme in Bangkok. There have been 11 relocations and 11 on-site improvements among the projects in Bangkok.
-- Table 2. Land tenure of Baan Mankong projects in Bangkok -Private landowners do not have a uniform stance; some are ready to sell their land to the community; others want a community to leave. CPB and TD are inclined to allow communities to stay on the land they occupy and to upgrade the settlement; PAT, SRT and RID want communities to relocate. There is a price to be paid for remaining on site: the CPB and the TD cannot sell their land and the communities have to agree to 15-year or 30-year leases. When communities relocate, they tend to buy land from a private landowner and become owners with full security of tenure. An important aspect of the secured land tenure is its collective nature: the community as a whole buys or leases the land. This is not only a reflection of the collective efforts to gain secure land tenure, but also a precautionary measure against the sale of land to outsiders. Once land tenure has been formalized and the protection provided by the informality of the land tenure arrangement is lifted, the land is subjected to much stronger market forces. With collective lease or ownership, a community can exert some control over land and house transactions (Usavagovitwong n.d.). Among the eleven communities that remained on site, four decided to reconstruct their settlement completely, while another four did re-blocking of some parts of the settlement, resulting in some reconstruction. Two communities reached a land sharing agreement with the land owner and land sharing implies a full reconstruction of the settlement on the remaining part of the land. In only one settlement, there was upgrading of existing houses and infrastructure as well as reconstruction and re-blocking. The eleven communities that needed to be relocated had to rebuild their houses completely.10 9
The SRT has large tracts of vacant land, but it would rather lease these to private developers for commercial use than to the urban poor for housing (Kongrut 2008). 10 Note that this analysis is based on a review of 22 projects in Bangkok only. The situation may be quite different in other cities and towns of Thailand where there is less pressure on land.
12
Baan Mankong does not use a single method for house construction; it is up to the community to decide how it wants to proceed. Some communities hire a contractor to undertake all the work, but this often proves to be expensive. Other communities hire a contractor only for the heavy work (foundations, frame structures) which they cannot do themselves. What is interesting is that there is no incremental housing; the projects tend to produce completed houses. Baan Mankong projects have provided many community members with construction skills and expertise which are valuable to other communities that need to reconstruct their houses. The community construction workers have organized themselves in teams called community builders. If a community needs a contractor, it prefers to hire such a team rather than an outside contractor, as community builders better understand the needs of the community and are less likely to cheat (CODI 2008, p.8). A study (quoted in CODI 2008, p.8) compared the construction costs of five projects in Bangkok. It found that houses built by a contractor cost twice as much as those built by community construction teams.
Table 3. Comparing construction costs Project
House type
Project A Project B Project C
2-storey detached house 2.5-storey rowhouse 2-storey rowhouse
Project D Project E
2-storey rowhouse 2.5-storey rowhouse
Living space Total cost Cost/m Construction by community teams 99 m2 $7,314 $74 110 m2 $8,857 $81 100 m2 $9,200 $92 Construction by contractor 49 m2 $9,400 $192 44 m2 $9,000 $206
2
Source: CODI 2008, p.8.
9. Effectiveness, inclusiveness and sustainability Effectiveness Baan Mankong has been successful in improving the living conditions of the urban poor covered by the programme. Community-networking reinforced the approaches of upgrading, resettlement and land-sharing by adding a new dimension: a more powerful position for urban poor communities to negotiate with land owners and local governments. Information sharing through the networks made participating communities also more knowledgeable and self-confident. The 22 projects in Bangkok showed that the approach made those communities less dependent on an accommodating attitude of landowners, and empowered them to operate more effectively in the urban land market, using the market-based modalities of buying and leasing to acquire land for housing. However, the scope of the programme is limited, because it is reactive rather than proactive in ensuring adequate housing for the urban poor. It supports urban poor communities that live in land-rental slums and squatter settlements, but does not generate opportunities for new low-income households or low-income households new to Bangkok in search of affordable housing. Some may argue that the Ua Arthorn programme serves that purpose, but the Ua Arthorn programme is based on a very different philosophy. Its direct-construction approach, which is commodity- rather than people-centred, has been largely ineffective in housing the urban poor. Inclusiveness
13
Despite its innovations in terms of city-wide approaches and networking, the thrust of the programme is fundamentally conservative, as it accepts rather than challenges the view that urban land and decent housing are only available to those who want and can afford to buy or lease. It is most effective for those households, who need only a little financial or technical support to improve their condition. However, communities are rarely homogeneous; there are often sub-groups among the urban poor with different needs and priorities in terms of land and house tenure and house type (Payne 2004, p.70). For instance, houses built in the projects tend to be multi-storied owner-occupied rowhouses, whereas a mixture of home ownership, rental housing and incremental housing development (i.e. building if and when resources are available) is often more suitable for the poor. The programme urges communities to look after their more vulnerable members, but such solidarity has its limits and too many weak households in a community can jeopardize the entire undertaking. Inclusiveness will be further jeopardized when the programme has to deal with difficult cases, such as settlements on private land where inexpensive alternative sites for nearby relocation are scarce. When acceptable and affordable solutions become more difficult to reach and costs increase, the poorest of the poor will find it harder to remain among the beneficiaries. Payne (2004) argues that the formal/informal dichotomy is not helpful for the very poor and that measures that simply formalize informal settlements would not be in their best interest. Currently, the most suitable option for the very poor tends to be informal land tenure, because informality gives the poor a level of protection against market forces and keeps housing costs low. Formalization would increase their housing costs and make them more vulnerable to displacement by less poor households (Kool et al. 1989); cities “without slums” are often cities without affordable housing for the very poor. What would be needed for those who cannot or do not want to own or lease is a national housing policy that introduces intermediate forms of land tenure. Sustainability The organization and networking of saving groups undoubtedly increases the purchasing power of the urban poor. However, the purchase of land, the provision of infrastructure and the reconstruction of houses require major external capital injections. Although a large part is given as loans, the financial sustainability of the programme is not secure, because the capital remains tied in real estate for a long time; repayment of housing loans takes 15 years. With many more settlements to deal with, cash flow problems may emerge and additional large scale funding may be necessary. In 2008, CODI announced in fact that it had cash flow problems (Bangkok Post, 20 March 2008) and had requested the government for additional funds. The Four Regions Slum Network, a national organization of slum dwellers, called on the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, the parent ministry of CODI, to inject more cash into the programme. It estimated the additional funds needed for the programme at Baht 5 billion or US$150 million (Bangkok Post 24 February 2009).
10. Conclusions Despite rapid economic growth and efforts by a range of organizations over many years, slums and squatter settlements still house some one million people in Bangkok. Public rental housing, sites-and-services schemes and direct construction of subsidized lowcost housing largely failed to reach the target group, and private-sector low-cost housing did not lead to a significant reduction in the slum population. Upgrading, resettlement
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and land sharing as stand-alone projects have proven to be effective in improving the living conditions of the urban poor, but their impact has been limited. The Baan Mankong programme has shown to be effective in improving land tenure security and the housing conditions of urban poor communities, but there are limitations to its effectiveness, inclusiveness and sustainability. The programme is best suited for those households who need a bit of financial and technical support to gain access to land ownership or long-term leases. However, there are urban poor households who cannot afford or do not want to become land and house owners or who need to develop their house incrementally. Furthermore, the programme does not cater for new lowincome households in search of housing. This underscores the argument that Thailand urgently needs a national housing policy that sets as its goal adequate housing for all (and in particular the very poor). Such a policy would have to outline the legal, financial, institutional and political means to give the urban poor access to affordable land and housing, and to set aside new land for housing the urban poor at affordable costs in suitable locations. The absence of a stated (low-income) housing policy is not unique, but appears to characterize an early phase of development. Doling (1999, pp.237-238) points out that in newly industrialized countries like Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, the combination of an unchallenged national objective of economic growth and a belief in the responsibility of the family and the community to care for its members meant that freestanding social welfare services were not given high priority in the early years of growth Only when the economy shifts towards higher value-added manufacturing, do investments in human capital to increase productivity rise on the political agenda. In the case of Thailand, Senanuch (2004, pp.21-25) argues, social welfare policies, such as a low-income housing policy have not been successful, because society expects people to be self-reliant, and if necessary, to rely on the family and the community. He quotes Mulder (1990, p.63) who notes that traditional Thai culture stresses the duty of the family and the community to care for their members. Outside the safety of the home and the community, one has to make every effort to be self-reliant; one cannot and should not rely on others. From this perspective, social welfare, such as subsidized housing, tends to be perceived as a kind of charity that creates dependency rather than as an entitlement to a minimum level of well-being. Many politicians keep this perception alive or even reinforce it by personalizing social welfare as a privilege and a favour they grant to the needy, who subsequently are expected to express their gratitude in some form or another. However, slum dwellers do not ask for charity and favours, but insist on their rights. When the government introduced a Slum Bill in 1989, slum leaders came with their own version that proposed the expropriation of all slum land and the payment of compensation to landowners according to standard rates set by the Land Department. The slum dwellers would pay back the compensation to the government under the terms of a long-term, low-interest programme. Slum leaders complained that their opinions were not taken seriously:
“The solutions are easy. The problem is that no one wants to listen to us. (..) We can only have real democracy when common people have a say in the policies that affect their lives. (..) We can’t wait for sympathy. We must insist on our own rights.” (Bangkok Post, 17 November 1989)
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The provision of access to affordable land and housing addresses the most critical issue for the urban poor: their marginal position in the urban society. What the poor demand is recognition that despite their poverty, they, their jobs and their settlements are integral parts of the city.11 The authorities and the urban middle-class do not consider this demand justified; they expect the poor to seize the opportunities offered by the expanding economy to escape poverty. If someone is still poor despite the rapid economic growth, one has only oneself to blame. This emphasis on self-reliance, rather than originating from an aversion by the poor to depend on outside assistance, is a reflection of the unwillingness of those with interests vested in property and power to recognize the basic right of all to a decent house and a minimum level of well-being. The right to adequate housing for all urban poor through their self-help or otherwise would require structural changes in the distribution of wealth and property. These changes also lie at the heart of the political tensions that have rocked Thailand over the past three years (Murphy 2009), but they remain an issue which the country, for the moment at least, is not ready to address.
11. References Angel, Shlomo, Stan Benjamin & Koos H. De Goede (1977), ‘The Low-Income Housing System in Bangkok’, Ekistics, 261, pp. 79-84. Angel, Shlomo & Sureeporn Chuated (1987), ‘The Down-Market Trend in Housing Production in Bangkok, 1980-1987’, pp. 3.1-3.30 in: The Land and Housing Markets of Bangkok: Strategies for Public Sector Participation, Volume II: Technical Reports, Bangkok: Planning and development Collaborative International. Angel, Shlomo. and Sureeporn Chuated, (1990). ‘The Down-Market Trend in Housing Production in Bangkok, 1980-1987’, pp. 1-20, Third World Planning Review, 12(1). Angel, Shlomo & Sopon Pornchokchai (1987), ‘The Informal Land Subdivision Market in Bangkok’, pp.4.1-4.26 in: The Land and Housing Markets of Bangkok: Strategies for Public Sector Participation, Volume II: Technical Reports, Bangkok: Planning and Development Collaborative International. Anzorena, E.J. (2008), ‘Community Upgrading project (Baan Mankong)’, SELAVIP Newsletter April 2008. Boonyabancha, Somsook (1999), Citizen Networks to Address Urban Poverty: Experiences of Urban Community Development Office, Thailand, unpublished. Boonyabancha, Somsook (2002), ‘Community as Subject, not Object: Using a Community Development Fund as a Flexible Tool to Support Community Initiatives and to Help People Build their Own Social Well-Being - Experiences from CODI, in Thailand’, Paper presented to the International Symposium on Social Well-being and Development: Toward a Policy Science in Support of Community Initiatives. Boonyabancha, Somsook (2003), ‘A Decade of Change: From the Urban Community Development Office (UCDO) to the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) in Thailand’, IIED Working Paper 12, London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
11
In defining “slum”, UN-Habitat noted that a slum is often “not recognized and addressed by the public authorities as an integral or equal part of the city.” (UN-Habitat, 2003, p.10).
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Boonyabancha, Somsook (2005), ‘Baan Mankong: Going to Scale with “Slum” and Squatter Upgrading in Thailand’, pp. 21-46, in: Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 17, No. 1. Chulasai, Bundit (1985) ‘Bangkok: The Myth of Shophouses’ pp.24-30, MIMAR, No. 15: Architecture in Development, Singapore: Concept Media Ltd. CODI (2004), Baan Mankong Handbook (draft), Bangkok, Community Organizations Development Institute. CODI (2005), Baan Mankong Cities Vol. 3: City-wide Upgrading in Bangkok, Bangkok: Community Organizations Development Institute. CODI (2008), 50 Community Upgrading Projects, Bangkok: Community Organizations Development Institute. Dooling, John (1999) ‘Housing Policies and the Little Tigers: How do they Compare with Other Industrialized Countries?’ pp.229-250, Housing Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2. Dowall, David E. (1989) Bangkok: A Profile of an Efficiently Performing Housing Market’ pp. 327-339, Urban Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3. Giles, Ceinwen (2003) ‘The Autonomy of Thai Housing Policy’, pp. 227-244, Habitat International, Vol. 27. Kool, Maarten, Dik Verboom and Jan Van der Linden (1989), ‘Squatter Settlement Improvement and Displacement’, pp.187-199, Habitat International, Vol. 13, No.3. Mulder, Niels (1990) Inside Thai Society: An Interpretation of Everyday Life, Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol. Murphy, Colum, ‘Populism Erodes Thailand’s Old Order’, Far Eastern Economic Review, June 2009. Na Thalang, Wadhanyu (2007), ‘Special Interview: Historical Perspective’, pp. 2-6, GH Bank Housing Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1. Ouyyanont, Porpant (2008), ‘The Crown Property Bureau in Thailand and the Crisis of 1997’, pp. 166-189, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 38, No. 1. Payne, Geoffrey (2004) ‘Land Tenure and Property Rights: An Introduction’, pp.167-179, Habitat International, Vol.28. Pornchokchai, Sopon (1985) 1020 Bangkok Slums Evidence Analysis Critics, Bangkok: School of Urban Community Research and Action. Pornchokchai, Sopon (no date) Evaluation of Housing Finance Mechanisms in Thailand, unpublished report. Prachuabmoh, Khan (2007) ‘An Integrated National Housing Development Strategy – Key to a Sustainable Thai Economy’, pp. 9-14, GH Bank Housing Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1. Rabé, Paul (2006) ‘Land Sharing in Phnom Penh: An Innovative but Insufficient Instrument of Secure Tenure for the Poor’, pp. 105-117 in Secure Land Tenure: New Legal Frameworks and Tools in Asia and the Pacific, Frederiksberg: International Federation of Surveyors. Senanuch, Puchong (2004) An Investigation into the Policy for Urban Poverty Alleviation in Thailand through the Study of Urban Slum Communities, Sidney, University of Sidney.
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UN-ESA (2008) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, New York: United Nations. UN-HABITAT (2003) The Challenge of Slums, Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, London: Earthscan. Usavagovitwong, Nattawut (n.d.) Towards Community Participation in House Design: Experience from Low-Income Waterfront Communities, Bangkok. Yap, Kioe Sheng (1992a), ‘The Slums of Bangkok’, pp. 31-48, in: Yap, Kioe Sheng (ed) Low-Income Housing in Bangkok: A Review of Some Housing Sub-Markets, Bangkok: Asian Institute of Technology. Yap, Kioe Sheng (1992b) ‘Low-Income Housing Sub-Markets’, pp. 7-30 in: Yap, Kioe Sheng (ed) Low-Income Housing in Bangkok: A Review of Some Housing Sub-Markets, Bangkok: Asian Institute of Technology. Yap, K.S., K. De Wandeler, A. Khanaiklang & P. Amtapunth (1993) ‘Low-Income Rental Housing of the National Housing Authority’, Study on Low-Income Rental Housing in Bangkok, Volume 6, Bangkok: Asian Institute of Technology. Yap, Kioe Sheng and Sakchai Kirinpanu (2000), ‘Once Only the Sky was the Limit: Bangkok’s Housing Boom and the Financial Crisis in Thailand’, pp. 11-27, Housing Studies, Volume 15, No. 1.
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Table 2 Land tenure of Baan Mankong projects in Bangkok
Original land owner
Community • Ruam Samakee
Crown Property Bureau
• Charoen Nakorn
On-site Upgrading No. of houses
Tenure
• Kao Pattana
124 320
Community
Relocation No. of houses
Tenure
34
30-year lease
-
-
30-year lease
• Wat Phra Yakrai
80
• Bonkai
202
• Klong Bang Bua
396
• Suan Phlu
264
BMA + private
• Gong Kaya
145
N/A
-
-
-
Temple
• Rattana Thibet
250
30-year lease
-
-
-
• Klong Toey 7-12
115
30-year lease
Treasury Department
15-year lease 30-year lease
Port Authority
Private
-
• Klong Lumnoon
49
• Saam Huang 2
200
• Charoenchai Nimitmai
89
• Klong Lat Paa Chee
90
• Saam Huang 1
96
• Mit Sampan
148
• Bang Prong
102
• Sirin Market
156
ownership
ownership
Royal Irrigation Dept.
• Gao Mai Pattana
89
ownership
State Railways
• Bang Gruay
195
ownership
Temple + private
• Panu Rangsee
118
ownership
State Railways + private
• Charoen Pattana
90
ownership
Total
11 communities
2.015 houses
11 communities
1,337 houses
19
20
