Kibera Soweto, East

The Kibera slum is slowly upgrading its housing from mud, dirt, sticks, and rusted tin to ominous concrete. Above is a view of Kibera Soweto we took while visiting last fall. In the skyline you see the houses being constructed by the Government and UN Habitat; below lay the rooftops of the slum residents that are to move into the new houses.

The idea is that as they move out and into the new houses it frees up more space for the Government and UN Habitat to build more housing under a program called KENSUP, Kenya Slum Upgrading Program. Ideally, the process continues until Kibera and other slums throughout Kenya are no longer a slums. The Government has long claimed that all residents in Kibera – what’s thought to be around a million people – are squatter on Government land. For nearly 50 years the Government has largely abandoned this land and now is beginning to reclaim the land and provide affordable housing for the residents.

Affordability is a key issue. In previous projects the Government has seen costs outstrip rental values. This leaves the newly constructed buildings vacant. So lets take a quick look at the costs of this project. News reports indicate that rents have been set at 1,000 /- (~ $13.37) per room.^[1] Half pays for water and electricity and the other half pays for housing.^[2] UN Habitat is targeting a total construction cost, including infrastructure, of $3,750 - $7500 per room. With 600 rooms, that places the cost of the Langata housing project at about $2.25 million - $4.50 million USD.

A back-of-the-envelop calculation shows that at the low-end (zero interest, $3,750 construction costs, the full $13.37 rent goes toward costs) it would only take 280 months (~ 23 years) to breakeven. This duration is inline with typical mortgages and appears reasonable. However this calculation also reveals the little leeway they have in construction. If the upper construction target is realized the time to breakeven doubles to nearly 47 years. This starts to highlight the difficulty in providing housing to people who can only afford $15 a month, when we would like everyone to be able to pay $15 a day for housing.

It’s also important to notice the extremely slow pace of this project. UN Habitat and then President Moi originally conceived the project in 2001. The Kibaki Government and UN Habitat signed a memorandum of understanding in early 2003 and officially launched the project in Oct. 2004. In June 2007 the UN reported that they were 60% complete and targeting a completion date of April 2008. Yet it took until Sept. 2009 to be “completed”. We use “completed” to acknowledge that while people are moving into the housing units they have yet to finish the connecting water and electricity services. Obviously, the political disruptions and violence from December 2007 – April 2008 can account for some justified delays, however given the project began in 2001 and launched in 2004 we see that this project is progressing at a remarkably slow pace.

This slow pace is good in the sense that the abandoned government land is being reclaimed in a structured manner with adequate notice; but bad in the sense that most people of Kibera cannot expect adequate housing anytime soon.

[2] See, for instance: http://www.youtube.com/v/QZWe33fToPo