Miami shantytown up in flames, but will its message be lost

The Miami Herald and Florida Today have the sad details. Forty four people lost their homes.

Will the Liberty City squatters rebuild....even stronger?

cooperative effort to tame trash in Rocinha

Viva Favela reports (in Portuguese) on a new mutirao -- mutual, communal effort -- to clean up garbage in Rocinha.

When I lived in the community, a woman's association had gotten a tractor and a wagon, and hired men to come around several mornings a week to pick up the trash. Still, it was only relocated to an area along the Largo dos Boiadeiros at the bottom of the favela, a location the city coul reach with a garbage truck. There was always way too much trash for the city to cart away.

fortunes & misfortunes of squatters in Buenos Aires

The Washington Post offers a take on the growth 'Neighborhoods of Misery' of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A good factoid from reporter Monte Reel: "even in places where rural migration to urban areas has begun to level off -- such as Argentina -- slums within cities continue to grow at a fast pace, through good economic times and bad." Despite robust economic growth, the money is not trickling down to the poor. "Population growth in the capital," he reports, "is fastest in its shantytowns, which continue to pop up beside railroad tracks, appear under bridges and even expand across the grounds of an ecological reserve."

He makes a key point: that the local name for squatter communities--'villas miserias,' or "neighborhoods of misery"--is actually a misnomer, for these are "slums that -- with enough money and infrastructure improvements -- conceivably could be transformed into permanent neighborhoods with full services"

Death and life in Brazil

Two Washington Post articles (the second a series of short vignettes) on death
and life in Rio's favelas.

(thanks to Washington for the second group of stories)

[and my apologies for being so sporadic on this blog of late: I just got back from Lagos, Nigeria, where I have been living for the past three months as I work on a new book.]

Squatters in an island paradise

Anyone who thinks urban squatters are confined to megacities, think again:

Squatters now make up 12 percent of the population of Fiji, according to this dispatch from Fijilive, and rural residents are continuing to trek to Suva, the capital city that is home to 3/4 of the country's population.

Syrian squatters

Aysh Warrwar is a hillside squatter neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus. Residents have invested in their own services, but are still not receiving infrastructure or assistance from nearby local governments. And, with no hospital close by, they have to pay more for health care than people who go to government hospitals.

A recent government experiment has brought the first public investments in the neighborhood in 30 years -- a primary school and a garbage truck.

The Great Water Rip Off

More proof (if more proof is needed) that people in Kibera are being ripped off, and possibly sickened by the way water is distributed. Inter Press Service reports that a new study shows that Kibera residents people in informal settlements pay about eight times more for water than those living in wealthier areas.

Of course this has been known for years. As I wrote in Shadow Cities, A World Bank Water & Sanitation Project study done more than four years ago proved the same thing.

IPS reports that the Nairobi Water Company has invited water kiosk owners in Kibera to join the system legally. They have, of course, resisted because of the high profits they make retailing water. Daniel Makau, one of the water vendors, told IPS he makes between $58 and $72 a month selling water. Truly big bucks, considering that most Kibera residents I knew earned between $30 and $40 a month.

Jo-burg can evict squatters

A court ruling in Johannesburg gives the city the right to evict squatters from buildings it deems unsafe, the Johannesburg News Agency reports.

The Supreme Court of Appeal decision allows the government to evict approximately 300 people from six buildings in the inner city that it argues are unsafe and unhealthy. The court ruling does, however, require the city to provide temporary relocation housing for the people it evicts.

The question of course is this: speculators have long used allegations that buildings are unsafe or dangerous to push low income people out. City officials have often colluded in those actions. Why not require the city to make the buildings habitable and fix violations rather than summarily ejecting the residents?

liberian evictions

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has given squatters under Monrovia's Gabriel Tucker Bridge a week to prepare for their eviction, according to this dispatch from The Analyst newspaper.

Public Works Minister Lusinee Donzo says the squatters must be pushed out because they have been dredging sand from under the bridge.

Of course, wouldn't it be easier to simply make a deal with the squatters not to mine sand from under the bridge, if that's the key problem.

The government has pledged to assist the squatters -- but did not disclose what kind of assistance will be provided.

The eviction of these squatters is part of a larger city effort to drive out all illegal occupants, officials said.

Sounds like more Muramtatsvina to me.

a whole new level of justice

Alternative dispute resolution in Dharavi. A number of women's groups around Mumbai have started their own version of 'courts,' with encouraging results. It's good to see the police are now committed to this.

Zambia gets the demolition bug

The government of Zambia has decided to demolish all shantytowns. These communities, it so happens, are also where the opposition draws its support. The horror continues. Isn't there a difference between squatter settlements and well-off people who have grabbed government land for their own gain. And where will the dislocated people go? Reuters and the Times of Zambiahave details.

[thanks to Gabe for alerting me to this story]

Danish squatters fight eviction

Squatters in Copenhagen, who have occupied their building for 25 years only to have it sold out from under them by the City Council, clashed with police enforcing an eviction order. It was a paramilitary operation and cops arrested 30 squatters after dropping from helicopters to the roof of the building. The BBC has details.

[thanks to Andrea for the alerting me to the story]

one squatter community's surprising position in global trade

Here's a story that might surprise some European fishermen: their catch is being processed in one of Lagos, Nigeria's most notorious shantytowns.

The squatter community of Makoko, home to perhaps 200,000 people, is most famous for its small riverside population. For almost 100 years, the people here have fished the local waters and have built their homes on stilts above the placid and increasingly polluted lagoon. Here, women paddle canoes between the houses, selling bread and cassava, candy and cloth, sodas and staple goods. Some even cruise the waters selling home-cooked meals.

Occasionally, one of the wooden homes looks like its on fire: smoke slides between the rough boards and billows out the windows. A closer look reveals that these seemingly burning buildings are local smokehouses. 50-year-old Ogun Dairo tells me that she's been smoking fish for better than 30 years. She purchases the fish from a local refrigerated warehouse that's also in Makoko, but on dry land. For all of the 30 years she's been in the business, she reports, the fish has been imported from Europe. She buys between five and seven large boxes of fish every day, then she smokes the catch (each fish has its tail stuck into its mouth, making it shaped like a ring) over a fire stoked with wood and sawdust (other Makoko merchants purchase the firewood and sawdust from nearby riverside sawmills and transport it to the community by canoe.)

Ogun Dairo sells the fish to retailers who work the streets and markets of Lagos.

There are many smokehouses like Ogun Dairo's scattered across Makoko. They are all buying European fish, proving that squatter communities like Makoko have long had a role to play in the global economy.

****

By the way, Ogun Dairo's fish tastes great: delicate rather than overpowering, and really refreshing in the Lagos heat.

Squatters face key South Africa Court Date

The city of Johannesburg has appealed a court decision blocking it from evicting downtown squatters. High Court Judge Mohamed Jajbhay had ruled that the city first had to find alternative accommodation for people being evicted and said the city had a duty - in terms of the constitution - to have a proper housing policy in place before people could be removed. The city claims the buildings the squatters occupy are hazardous and a health threat. The case has now been filed with the Supreme Court of Appeal and could affect squatters in many South African cities. The Star has details.

Risk to squatters around the Mumbai airport

As the Hindustan Times reports, 60,000 families are fearing for their future now that the Mumbai Airport Authority plans to evict them from their communities to make way for an expansion plan.

sit-down strike against no-sitting ordinance

The city of Olympia, Washington has joined the no sitting bandwagon, passing an ordinance that blocks anyone from sitting on the sidewalks in parts of downtown during daylight hours. In response, homeless people and advocates have erected several tent cities. Now the City Manager has vowed to demolish the encampments.

Here are several articles from The Olympian that tell the story:

tent city built

tent city raises concerns

disband or else!

[thanks to Dj Nuts & Bolts, Free Radio Olympia 98.5, for the heads up]

Losing everything in the Jakarta flooding

Though the horrific flooding has affected everyone in the Indonesian capital, consider this, from the Asia Sentinel: "Illegal squatters who live in 30-year-old “temporary” plywood houses occupy areas along the riverbanks. Efforts to evict them are ongoing and heavy handed but this time the floods have done the work. While five-star hotels are offering discounts to the wealthy in search of shelter, tens of thousands of the poor have lost everything in the last few days."

And as The Jakarta Post points out:

Poor public discipline and the disgraceful national habit of destroying the environment and dumping garbage into rivers are certainly a factor, along with unchecked growth in the capital that has resulted in more and more squatters on water catchment areas and along river banks.

But much more damaging has been the corruption in the bureaucracy and the power of lobbyists to win the day for commercial interests above all else.

The root cause thus lies in the immense power of vested interests in the government, the military and business conglomerates.

Homeless encampment at risk in Japan

The city of Osaka, Japan is mulling a plan to evict 3,500 squatters as it prepares for a major sporting event. Japan Times has the ugly details.

(thanks to Anthony George for sending the link)

[And, for anyone who may have been wondering why this is my first post in more than a week: I'm in Lagos, Nigeria for the coming three months as I start work on a new book. I'll be posting new items from Lagos at some point soon.]

Survivors Village

Here's some good news out of New Orleans: squatters are occupying several builings of the St. Bernard Housing Project in New Orleans, Survivors Village reports in this press release. Through this action, and a tent city they have also erected, former residents of the complex are pushing for it and other housing projects to be renovated and re-occupied rather than demolished.

Let's hope these activists can get some coverage and change some minds. The lack of national interest in the fight to help New Orleans to recover is absolutely staggering.

[thanks to Ben Maurer for alerting me to this story]

Out of sight, out of home

For the majority in Delhi, the Indian capital, new malls and hotels rising on the city's periphery are not signs of hope. They're indicators of eviction. The Guardian's Randeep Ramesh reports on how the city's supposed renewal plans are bulldozing the homes of the poor.

"The problem for Delhi is huge because 32% live in jhuggies (slums)," an activist says. "How can you just bulldoze. Where will they put all the millions of people? What about their rights?"

Still, the report continues, groups that can develop political swat can block demolitions: "Unlike the poor, powerful groups can mobilise to bring the government to heel. A recent attempt to seal thousands of illegal shops was halted by a coalition of traders who could vote the Congress party out of power in the Delhi municipality."

If squatters represent 1/3 of the population, how come their don't have political power? A serious question for the world's largest democracy.

[Thanks to e-tat for alerting me to the article]