Housing for all in Bangkok.

     

      A few years before the Millenium, Sri Lanka's then President Premadasa, known for promising the impossible, had hoardings erected across Colombo, proclaiming "Housing For All By The Year 2000".  Housing experts claimed at the time that half the population of Colombo lived in shanty housing:  corrugated tin roofs on little shacks built wherever there was a patch of vacant land.  As the Millenium got nearer Premadasa,  realising this could damage his credibility, had the hoardings quietly taken down.

     More recently, Thaksin Shinawatra, a character very like Premadasa, promised to build up to a million low-cost housing units for the people of Thailand.  A December 2007 editorial in The Nation newspaper called it "a nightmare scenario of poorly designed, sloppily built suburban sprawl, mushrooming all over the country.  The most repeated mistake", it said, "was to build where land is cheap, away from the city centres, where most low-wage earners make their living".

     No realistic politician should ever make such promises. 

     The Nation claimed that millions of poor urban Thais live in squalid, swampy conditions.

     A survey carried out by the National Housing Authority(NHA) in 1990 estimated about a fifth of the city lives in shanty housing, in up to 1,200 shanty settlements in Bangkok according to Slum Dwellers International (June 2004).       

     For example, Khlong Toei, Bangkok's largest shanty town, was originally built to house the temporary workers building the docks seventy years ago. Squeezed between the docks on the Chao Phraya River and the new expressway to Bangna, it now houses 80,000 inhabitants.  Newspapers often decry its existence especially close to factories emitting noxious fumes, its lack of proper facilities and its disregard of building regulations.

     The International Herad Tribune in 1995 argued that experts relied on trickle-down as a way to distribute the new wealth in developing economies. But, when they interviewed Wasana Siluang, living in Khlong Toei, she said that the only thing trickling down in her shack "is a black, smelly mix of sewage and chemicals from Bangkok's port every time there is a major downpour" - which means almost daily during the rainy season. "I see all the new buildings going up in the city and I wonder why we don't see any of this wealth here," said Mrs. Wasana. She has lived in Khlong Toei for nearly 20 years.  

     But the residents of Klong Toei live in constant fear of eviction, as the Port seeks to cash in on the value of the land. But even more serious is the threat of fire in the maze of mostly wooden shacks.  Several fires have devastated large parts of Khlong Toei recently. One in 1990 made 1,500 people homeless. "We fear fires more than eviction, because if we are evicted, at least we can keep some of our belongings", said Mrs. Wasana.

Promises, promises:

    Yet little gets done. Politicians still make promises. Plans get made.  But few of the promises get realised.

      The Nation argues that it is easy to build low-cost homes if they are just prefab concrete boxes with corrugated-tin roofs, just like the ones in Khlong Toei.  But the dream of low-cost housing that is fit for purpose, wind and water proof, with adequate lighting, sanitation and water, near where the occupants work, is impossible.  The underlying problem is that this urban under-class cannot afford a decent place to live since they often live from day to day, getting by as best they can, often on far less than the Bangkok minimum wage.  They need a hand to lift them up as much as they do decent housing.                                                                                 

    According to the UN Human Settlements Commission in Thailand, "housing has never been high on the political agenda in Thailand.......The National Housing Authority built low-cost rental (units)......governments have not interfered in the land and housing market...But the number of slum dwellers has not decreased.....while government policy may have benefited private developers more than it benefited low-income homebuyers".

      The NHA has the remit to provide housing for low-income people and to improve existing conditions.  It has tried.  It currently has some schemes in Khlong Toei to rebuild and relocate.  And it has improved existing walkways and access in some of the tightly packed collections of shacks. But a Thailand Blue Ribbon Committee on Slum Housing cited the NHA as "iinefficient and ineffective...in tackling the problems of..as much as one-third of the city's slum housing".

The dream and the reality: 

      The NHA was assigned to supervise the Baan Ua-arthorn project ("We care"), a low-cost housing scheme formed mainly to implement Thaksin's promise for a million new housing units.  But the project has been heavily criticised for serious shortcomings.  Asia Views (February 2008) reported that the NHA conceded last month that the project was plagued with problems.  The NHA governor admitted that it had been hastily implemented and had placed quantity before quality. 

     The NHA is behind with its promises to complete the promised number of units.  The project aimed to build 600,000 housing units by 2007, although 140,000 are still to be built.  The NHA reported that it had a total of 81,485 homes. However, the number of applicants for the homes was nearly 357,000 as of May 2004, indicating that potential demand could swamp the project.

     Also, there are serious charges of corruption in the project.

     Thailand's Assets Examination Committee is to interrogate Wattana Muangsuk, the ex-Minister of Social Development and Human Security, as well as Mr Mana Wongphiwat, the president of the subcommittee monitoring the housing project, as both are accused of bribery, while others in the project are accused of money laundering (reported by Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 20 March 2007).

    There have also been reports that Baan Ua-arthorn contractors had been forced to pay 10,000 baht per unit to politicians as kickbacks for construction deals.  Yet the Bangkok Post for 7 February 2008 reported that the new, post-coup Thai government is to revive the Baan Ua-arthorn scheme even though it is mired in these corruption charges.  

     Although the NHA holds up the project as an example of housing for the poor, it was never meant for the urban underclass.  It aimed to "encourage staff from the public sector and other Thai people to purchase their own homes".  The NHA optimistically claims such project "ultimately will lead to the development of Thai cities which will eventually be called livable cities"   

     Politicians in Thailand are not interested in supplying quality cheap housing for this underclass of fresh food hawkers, cheap cooked meal vendors, and other pavement stall holders, as well as casual workers, motorcycle taxi-drivers, unskilled workers on building sites, or rubbish recyclers.  Yet Time Out's Guide to Bangkok points out that the self employed traders are a colourful attraction for tourists to Bangkok. No large city authority can really afford to offer cheap housing for all the low-income households in need.  To do so would simply encourage too many other migrants to the city.  There has to be ways to ration the supply of cheap accomodation.

Surviving in the city: 

      So how do low-income households get a foothold on the Bangkok housing ladder?  They have three possible options:

1:    They can squat on whatever patch of land they might come across, in the hope that the  owner will not evict them until the land is required for development.  But, given the demand for condominiums for the wealthy new middle classes in central Bangkok now, this is a less likely option than it was.

2:     If they are lucky, they can share or enlarge an existing shack belonging to a family member. It is commonplace for low-income people to share with relatives or expand the shacks when they arrive in the city. People improve what housing they have already built as and when they have the money.  Some of the best shanty housing in Bangkok lies along the (putrid smelling) canals or the (hazardous) railway lines (see photos).  Over time, these settlements have struggled with the threat of evictions, and have negotiated with the authorities to gain a more permanent purchase on these plots.  Most of the shacks along the railways have formed a Railway Network Association to promote their interests, as have some of the canal groups.

3:     Or they can rent poor quality units in the private sector.  For example, in Srinakarin,  along Soi 77 of Thanon On Nut, there are five huge blocks of housing units. Each of the blocks has up to six passageways inside.  Off each passageway, there are rows of single room units, each with attached bathrooms; but no windows (to keep down  the cost). Each unit has a large room with a double bed and an adjoining bathroom. Those lucky enough to get a unit with windows will find the walls leak during the rainy season.  These windowless units are commonplace types of working class housing, and are just within the reach of families earning around the minimum wage.     

    There are no easy solutions to finding a place to live for the urban poor, new arrived in  Bangkok.  Partly, it depends on their luck and partly it depends on the ingenuity and survival skills they have already developed in coping with a life of poverty.