Policy Analysis and Advocacy

Policy Research on Access to Housing and Socio-economic Rights Presented at Department of Housing Seminar

In March, 2004, the national Department of Housing sponsored a seminar to present the results of commissioned research on five discrete topics, each focusing on possible responses to the various challenges facing the housing sector. Together, these focus areas comprise a policy and research agenda as a statement of strategic policy direction for the Department of Housing, and are intended to provide the basis for dialogue amongst key public, private, and community-based stakeholders in the South African housing sector.

Planact, in cooperation with the Urban Sector Network, was involved in the research component on access to housing and socio-economic rights, which included an analysis of the extent to which housing rights are being achieved and of the measures the Department of Housing should put into place to ensure the progressive realisation of those rights. The research report indicated the need to develop a coherent response to evolving interpretations of the state’s role in ensuring a right to housing, as provided by the Constitution and other international agreements. It also explored the involvement of civil society in protecting, promoting and realizing housing rights.

While South Africa has one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world, one which promises the realisation of social and economic rights as well as civil and political rights, the state is still inadequately responding to the situation of the urban poor. Recent test cases in the Constitutional Court--most notably the case of Irene Grootboom and Others v. Oostenberg Municipality, the Cape Metropolitan Council, the Premier of the Province of the Western Cape, the National Housing Board and the Government of the Republic of South Africa (2000), in which the state was ordered to provide a plan to house informal settlement dwellers that it had intended to evict from the land they were occupying-have increased the sense of urgency for the government to more aptly demonstrate its commitment to realising the right to housing and other socio-economic rights. The Grootboom Judgement general order stated that “Section 26(2) of the Constitution requires the State to devise and implement within its available resources a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme progressively to realize the right of access to adequate housing.” While various commentators disagreed about the extent to which this order would work in favour of improving access to adequate housing--particularly given the general scope outlined in the judgement that the measures adopted by the State must be ‘reasonable’ within their social, economic and historical context and within the availability of resources-there is no doubt that the judgement has focused new attention on the issue and that policy makers are taking the rights issue more seriously.

The civil society stakeholders interviewed for this report generally have both a very clear understanding of what a right to housing in a broad sense is meant to consist of in South Africa, and a very strong belief in the central, activist role the state must play in expanding access to those rights. At the same time, there was also considerable frustration evident over the slow pace of delivery, the failure of the housing that has been developed to meet the criteria of adequate housing, the ways in which the state is actually violating housing rights through evictions, and the failure to demonstrate a commitment to real participation by communities and organisations of civil society in policy and implementation processes, particularly at the local level where most of the engagement is (at least initially) attempted. While civil society stakeholders took various approaches in trying to assist communities to access housing rights, there was a recognition that the strategies of confrontation and direct action are becoming increasingly likely as the only means people find it possible to make their demands heard. The report outlined a number of concrete measures that the government, in conjunction with civil society stakeholders, could take to improve access to housing and socio-economic rights in South Africa.

The report has not officially been released by the Department of Housing, but the results are being used in various research and policy-making forums. For more information, contact the Policy and Programme Management division of the National Department of Housing, ahmedi@housing.gov.za.

(July, 2004)

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