James Sofasonke Mpanza and Johannesburg’s Squatter Movement 1938 to 1947

www.sahistory.org.za. – The Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 declared that blacks were temporary sojourners in urban areas and would only be permitted to reside there when employed. At the end of their working life they were to return to their homelands. The Act, intended to cover urban centres across South Africa, was rigorously applied by the Johannesburg Municipal Council (JMC). It provided the JMC with a legal basis to clear the inner city of what it considered insanitary areas. Between 1924 and 1931 the JMC issued eviction orders to blacks (individuals and families) residing in inner city slum yards to vacate these areas. These were contested in the courts, who ruled the eviction orders illegal if the JMC did not provide alternative accommodation to those affected.

Early in the 1930s, with the Great Depression lifting and the mining industry revitalized, the JMC was able to raise revenue to undertake a housing programme. This resulted in the establishment of Orlando Township in 1932. Slum clearance in the inner city of Johannesburg began in earnest in 1932 and was completed in 1937, when residents of Prospect Township were relocated to Orlando.

It soon became apparent that the number of houses provided by the JMC in Orlando was inadequate to cover all slum residents forced out of the inner city. Some sought accommodation in the freehold townships of the Western Areas. These included Sophiatown, Newclare and Martindale. Others opted to sublet in Orlando, becoming subtenants. The number of subtenants grew steadily in the second half of the 1930s, increasingly sharply during World War II.

Read more: James Sofasonke Mpanza and Johannesburg’s squatter movement 1938-1947

Phakamisa Ndzamela – Squeeze On Financing For Affordable Housing

bdlive.co.za – February, 06,  2013
The deteriorating creditworthiness and affordability among South Africans has affected the appetite for advance loans for affordable houses, according to Nedbank’s affordable-housing head Jeff Lawrence.

Among the worst affected were those earning between R3,501 and R15,000; they have been falling through the cracks when it comes to qualifying for mortgage finance.
To alleviate this problem, stakeholders need to come together to fully implement the government-initiated mortgage default insurance scheme and the finance-linked individual subsidy programme, which is meant to reduce the initial home loan amount to make the monthly instalments affordable, especially in the low-income market.
Mortgage default insurance is aimed at providing risk cover to commercial banks against clients defaulting on their mortgages.

The government hopes interventions such as these, which were announced by the National Housing Finance Corporation in late 2010, will encourage banks to increase lending for housing.

Read more: http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/property/2013/02/06/squeeze-on-financing-for-affordable-housing

Clean Energy For The Slums Of Johannesburg

South Africa’s most populous city is attracting more and more people on the search for work and a better life. Most of the migrants find housing in derelict buildings and slum-like settlements without electricity. How to provide these people with clean and affordable energy is the aim of the German-South African “EnerKey” research project.

Read more: http://www.dw.de/program/tomorrow-today

Social Housing and Location Choices of Immigrants in France

IZA- Bonn – In the context of increasing ethnic and racial tensions in several European countries and growing influence of far right political parties in some of these countries, welfare use by immigrants (and more generally, the cost of immigration) is gaining importance in both the political and scientific debates. Research on this topic has emerged in the 1990s’ in the USA leading to some controversial findings (Borjas (1990); Borjas (1999); Kaushal (2005)). In Europe, and particularly in France,such studies remain very rare. Recently, some empirical research tried to measure immigrants’responses to di erences in welfare systems across European countries. The idea is to measure the extent to which the choice of a destination country within the European continent is correlated with the more or less generosity of its welfare system. Research on this topic finds little empirical
support to the welfare magnets hypothesis elaborated by Borjas (Brucker, Epstein, McCormick, Saint-Paul, Venturini, and Zimmermann (2002); Nannestad (2007)). Moreover, several studies address the issue of the validity of the welfare magnets approach in the European context. Immigration legislations and policies are so different across European countries, on the one hand, and the process of legal immigration is so difficult in the context of restrictive policies widespread all over the continent, on the other hand, that speaking of immigrants’ choices of their destination country is quite unrealistic. Evidence has been more convincing on immigrants’ responses to geographical differences in the sizes of the foreign-born populations, or co-ethnics populations, rather than to welfare differentials (Card (2007); Edin, Fredriksson, and Åslund (2003); Zavodny (2005)). Network effects seem to be more powerful than welfare magnets.

Read more – PDF-file: http://www.crest.fr/fougere_fichiers/dp5557.pdf

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About the History of Housing Policy in the U.K.

BFI.  Many of the leading documentary filmmakers of the 1930s believed that their films had a purpose to improve people’s lives. Housing conditions were a key social concern, and remained so at least until the 1960s. These works include Housing Problems, a landmark film in the history of British documentary filmmaking, which retains its powerful impact

Read more:  http://beta.bfi.org.uk/4e3032b63987e

The BFI is the UK’s lead film organisation.

In its mission to achieve a creative and prosperous film culture and industry base, the BFI drives creative, economic, and cultural success through a linked portfolio of activities.

http://beta.bfi.org.uk/

Greens Release Plan for Solar Panels on Every Public Housing Home

www.lynnmaclaren.org.au. Jan. 29, 2013. The Greens have unveiled a $68 million plan to slash the power bills of some of the state’s poorest families and pensioners while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 74,000 tonnes a year.
The plan would see 1.5kW solar systems installed on the roofs of every public and community housing dwelling across the state.

Housing spokesperson for the Greens Lynn MacLaren MLC said the initiative would help families and other public and community housing tenants by bringing down their cost of electricity by an average of $500 a year.
“At the same time it will assist in bringing down the state’s carbon emissions and boosting the solar energy industry in WA,” Ms MacLaren said.
“It is a win, win, win situation.

“With a relatively small government investment we could provide a boost to the budget bottom line of thousands of pensioners and families while at the same time reducing the state’s carbon emissions.
“We have around 22,000 public housing homes and apartments across WA and another nearly 8,000 community housing units. Their roofs could be used to assist householders in meeting rising utilities costs while at the same time reducing the state’s growing carbon footprint.

Read more: http://www.lynnmaclaren.org.au/greens-release-plan-solar-panels-every-public-housing-home