The growth and movement of the world’s population are continuing to engage the attention of the United Nations (UN), particularly in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and their 2030 achievement date, which becomes increasingly unattainable owing mostly to conflict and greed. The UN projects that the world’s population, estimated at 8.0 billion this year, will increase by nearly 0.6 billion by 2030 and it will keep growing.
This, compounded with lack of action as well as discriminatory practices by governments, will result in a widening of food and housing deficits, placing more people in jeopardy. The UN Statistics Division estimated that in 2022, more than one billion urban residents lived in slums and slum-like conditions, with this figure expected to triple by 2050. This immediately renders SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities untenable, especially its first target, which speaks to ensuring adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrading slums.
The fact that there is a global housing crisis serves to worsen the situation. While governments are being urged to act, many are slow to do so. Globally, the housing market is largely private sector driven, which as is well known equates with unaffordable. Except in a handful of mostly European countries, government housing projects have not been success stories with many sold off to residents or private developers.
Here in Guyana, the current administration is obviously pleased with its housing efforts, judging by the public relations campaigns behind the issuing of house lots and completed dwellings around the country and the ongoing recitals of statistics regarding the inroads made as well as projections for the future. However, to paraphrase and borrow from the song made popular by Dionne Warwick, a house is not a home, when it fails to meet minimum standards.
In 2018, in view of the increasing importance of housing to health, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued guidelines to safe and healthy housing. They recommended, among other things, that there should be provision of adequate living space, protection from the elements, ventilation, sanitation, water quality and electricity. This is in view of the fact that numerous studies have found that poor housing contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and mental health disorders. In addition, crowded housing lends to child abuse and domestic violence.
In 2021, the World Bank Group also set out its definition for adequate housing, which it said was: access to water and sanitation, an adequate living space of durable material with good structural quality, security of tenure, and access to electricity and clean cooking.
Based on these guidelines, Canada was criticised in 2021, for having 53% of Inuits in Nunavut, one of its remote northern territories, living in crowded dwellings, with instances of families of eight sharing a two-bedroom unit. It was only last year that the Canadian government invested in new housing in Nunavut in collaboration with an Innuit-owned construction company.
Despite the hype with which it touts its ‘housing boom’ Guyana generally meets neither the WHO guidelines, nor the World Bank definition. That being said, what also ought to be questioned is whether the powers that be have even considered a local minimum standard for housing. What currently prevails suggests not.
As a case in point, during the first week of last month, the Ministry of Housing and Water announced on social media that it had handed over the keys to 20 ‘homes’ to hinterland families. According to the Facebook post, “each flat house [they have no stairs] measures 20 x 25 feet”. For context, this is 500 sq ft – the size of a small studio apartment.
The accompanying photo depicted a squat, unpainted clay brick structure with a galvanized sheeting roof, wooden windows and doors. Its central feature appeared to be a black tank set up to capture rainwater from the roof’s guttering. One assumes that these 20 families in Yakarinta and Nappi, Region Nine (Upper Essequibo-Upper Takutu) will receive solar panels at some point for the provision of electricity, but even so the wooden windows make no sense. There is no way for any natural light to enter the ‘home’ when it rains and the windows have to be closed. It was also obvious that the size of the families was not taken into consideration. While a 20 x 25 feet space might suit a couple, try to imagine two parents with three or four children of varying ages and genders and perhaps a grandparent in the same area. Incomprehensible. The fact that these dwellings are free is clear in their meagre proportions and repressive construction.
Elsewhere, the same ministry’s low-income housing project, announced last year, offers two-bedroom structures made of concrete for $5.2 million each. These are almost unaffordable as those who qualify based on their earnings might barely manage to pay off their mortgages in 12 to 15 years, while scraping to meet other daily and monthly costs. Again, the units do not cater for larger families when it is well known that many that are considered low income are extended with four or more children.
Meanwhile, the same lack of rationale prevails under President Irfaan Ali’s Men on Mission (MoM) creation. Among the projects publicised by MoM last year were a two-bedroom for a family of four at Black Bush Polder; a two-bedroom for a family of two at Number 64 Village, Corentyne; a two-bedroom for a family of ten at Better Success; a two-bedroom for a family of eight at Elijiah Mary/Little Africa, Corentyne; and a three-bedroom for a family of seven at Hampshire Village, Corentyne.
One expects that the armchair experts will argue that inadequate housing is better than none at all. However, that holds no water when it exacerbates age-old problems and does not fit into the much touted ‘One Guyana’ scenario. Minimum standards for housing are absolutely necessary and they must take health and well-being into consideration. People’s very lives are at stake.
