Housing

Lessons Learnt

Updated: April 2006

The revised ARP Housing Strategy (Oct. 2005) was greatly influenced by the lessons learnt from the early years of the Project.

Recognition of the importance of Alexandra as a key location

The original Alex housing strategy aimed to relocate households living within floodplains, tributaries and road reserves to large housing projects outside of the Alexandra sub-region.

The policy was extremely unpopular with those relocated even though they were substantially better off with regards to access to urban services. Indeed evidence exists that many have simply returned to Alexandra to live in shacks once again.
 
The policy was equally unpopular with local communities around Braamfisherville and Diepsloot who perceived their housing opportunities being allocated to outsiders.

Affordability levels

The Benchmark Survey has revealed that the affordability levels of households within Alexandra makes the rents envisaged in the social housing programme unaffordable to all but 7% of households. This does not negate the need for social housing within Alexandra as an enormous demand exists for well-located affordable rented accommodation by households presently living outside of Alexandra.

Click thru' to see a presentation on the ARP Benchmark Survey, dd Aug. 2005, 2.4Mb.

Need for affordable rental accommodation

Some 30% of households in Alex would choose not to invest their housing opportunity within Alexandra. These include single person households, and households that still have strong linkages back to the rural areas. They would be best served by access to affordable and safe rented rooms.

Factory dwellers		ARP transit village

Clear distinction between emergency housing and the transit facilities

The rate of ARP delivery was almost shut down when households were allocated emergency accommodation within the ARP's transit facility without a long term solution being in place to rehouse them.

The transit village was built to enable infrastructure to be built in densely populated areas. The rationale was that houses were demolished and households placed in the transit facility while new base infrastructure was installed. Such households are then allocated to new housing projects. The transit facilities are therefore a fundamental part of the development and allocation process.