Housing backlog grows in tandem with economic crisis

Zimbabwe's housing shortage and economic crisis has robbed many urban Zimbabweans of the dream of ever owning their own home. Housing minister Ignatius Chombo has admitted that the government is failing to match demand, citing among other things, a lack of resources. The ministry says the national housing backlog was 1.5 million units in December 2002, and the city council of Harare, the capital, has a waiting list of 300,000. Harare has more than 10 major informal settlements where the poor have been forced to reside. One of the oldest is Hatcliffe Extension, which sprouted in the late 1990s when the government evicted 800 families from the farm of an opposition leader who had allocated free stands, and dumped the squatters 20 km north of Harare. Residents of Hatcliffe Extension, located next to plush suburbs, use pit latrines and depend on one communal borehole for their water. Accommodation consists of wooden shacks and, during the rainy season, the shacks flood and the pit latrines overflow. Living alongside the original families are criminals who have moved into the settlement to escape the law. The capital's traditional working class suburbs are also bursting at the seams. Thomas Saizi lives in the crowded Matererini Flats in Mbare, where he shares one room with his family of six. The room is divided by curtains, in attempt to at least try and provide some privacy for the occupants. "I grew up here in Mbare and have been living in this room for the last 30 years. All my children still live with me because they are unemployed and cannot find accommodation of their own," he told IRIN. Saizi, who earns a living by selling scrap metal, said his eldest daughter, aged 27, had recently returned from her husband with a 10-year old child, bringing an additional burden to the limited space. "I have lost all hope of having my own house because I do not have the money to buy a residential stand. I do not see myself joining the Harare City Council housing list because it will not help me. I know of friends who have been there [on the list] for the past 20 or so years without getting their stands. Even if I managed to acquire a stand, where would I get the money to buy the material with which to build the house, not to mention monthly payments required by building societies?" asked Saizi. Since independence over 20 years ago, the city council has been trying, and failing, to improve living conditions in Mbare. On several occasions it resolved to demolish some of the worst of the accommodation in order to build better homes - plans which never materialised. While few have much hope of securing a home through the city council, where officials have repeatedly been accused of accepting bribes to circumvent the waiting list, Zimbabwe's middle class are also feeling the pinch. Inflation has hit 400 percent and interest rates are around 80 percent. An increasing number of families failing to make their mortgage repayments are losing their homes to the banks. For those who do own a plot of land, building materials are in short supply and extremely expensive. A 50 kg bag of cement with a gazetted price of Zim $800 (US $1) is being sold for Zim $12,000 (US $15) on the black market. Portland Cement, Circle Cement and Sino Cement, Zimbabwe's major cement producers, have drastically downscaled their operations, citing a shortage of raw materials. George Utaumire, president of the Zimbabwe Building Contractors’ Association, says the shortage of cement is crippling any initiative to build more houses. "A lot of housing projects have been shelved, leading to an increased housing backlog. If by any chance construction resumes, the houses will cost more because of increasing costs," Utaumire recently told the independent Daily News newspaper. Most house construction is done by private developers. Edith Kagoro, chairwoman of the Greater Harare Housing Co-operative Union, says co-operatives in her union often complain that private developers charge exorbitant fees for their services. "Many prospective homeowners are finding it difficult to build houses, even if they might have acquired stands, because of the high fees charged by private developers. Affiliate co-operatives often come to us complaining that the cost of developing their stands is too high. There is a significant number of people who ended up selling their stands, some of them with half-complete structures," Kagoro told IRIN. She added that some of those that could afford it were buying stands for speculative reasons, thereby worsening the housing crisis. "Many people are buying stands, but with no intention of developing them. They simply wait for a few years before reselling the stands at exorbitant prices."