HOMES AND THE HOMELESS

A homeless mother & child

By Olumide T. Agunbiade |Nigerian writer

IT rained heavily on Wednesday, July 10, 2011. On that day, nine-year-old Sarah Adubi was searching for an alternative shelter after an ill-wind had blown away her carton and Cardboard made home. Unfortunately, she didn’t succeed in getting one, even though she tried to.

 About 12 metres away from her home, she needed to get past one of the erosion-created gullies that transverse her neighbourhood but she couldn’t get past the gully. Her small feet slipped and she fell into a four feet deep gully while the treacherous flood swept her at top speed, smashed her against several objects and finally deposited her at the foot of a banana tree near a carpentry workshop. By the time she was found later that evening, her clothes were in tatters and she was unconscious.

In his introduction to ‘Man’s Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World,’ Charles Abrams observed that: “despite man’s unprecedented progress in education, industry, and sciences, the simple refuge which affords privacy and protection against the elements is still beyond the reach of most members of the human race.”

Adequate shelter has always been one of man’s basic needs; it is a significant component for human survival and a useful barometer for measuring societal development. As a unit of the environment, it has a profound effect on the health, efficiency, social behavior, satisfaction, productivity and societal wellbeing.

Homelessness is a social scourge most evident in Nigeria’s rapidly expanding urban cities and swarming commercial centre. This problem has been necessitated by several factors, including increasing population, inadequate housing, and uncontrolled urban growth pattern. Recent reports by different human rights organizations seem to place the problem squarely at the door steps of the federal and state governments in the country.

According to the reports, official real estate development policy frequently includes the forcible eviction and demolition of privately owned housing complexes, and that government often target marginalized areas (where most of the poorer population live) for the building of modern commercial facilities and recreation centre for the moneyed elite.

Amnesty International says that over 1.5 million people have been ejected from their homes and driven into the street life following the wave of ejections and demolition that began all    over the country since 1995. Arguing in a similar vein, the Social and Economic Rights Action (SERAC) estimates that in just one location alone-Ogunbiyi village of Ikeja, Lagos, about 12 thousand people were forcibly ejected from their homes in December 2005 by the combined action of the Nigerian Police, Army, and Federal Task Force on environment; and that in other parts of the city some of the victims of forced evictions have been government workers living in publicly owned apartment buildings.

In Lagos, the homeless population grows by the hour. Experts believe that on a scale of   one to 100 among the cities of the world that are considered fastest in growth, Lagos, Nigeria is seventh. Lagos compares only to China’s Beihai, which grows by 10.58 percent of an annual growth in 2006. A press release published by Amnesty International, in January 2006 suggests that homelessness in Lagos may be the rippling effect of the forced evictions that took place from April 25-27 1995. According to the report, ‘it is estimated that in the last five years, over 1.2million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in different parts of the country. Such evictions generally target marginalized people, many of whom have lived for years without access to clean water, sanitation, adequate health care or education.

  Poverty is rife in Nigeria, despite the fact that it is Africa’s largest oil exporter’. Lagos’ current population of approximately 18 million is one of the fastest growing in the world, and by United Nations’ estimates, this will hit the 24.5 million inhabitants mark by 2015.If the findings by another NGO, Compassionate Outreach in Lagos are anything to go by, it makes the case of Lagos particularly worrisome. From field activities that the NGO conducted under the bridges, its findings showed that homeless adult males who mostly indulge in prostitution and touting in Ojuelegba alone were 35,000, while the number for  adult female  and juvenile male and female  came to 30,000.

At Railway, Oripkako at Ijora were 40,000 homeless men, 15, 000 homeless women and 35,000 children. The NGO figures also said that there were 2,500 adult male, 650 adult female, and 2,500 young boys and girls at Maryland who were involved in prostitution, touting and transporters as okada riders.
At Oshodi and Mushin, Compassionate Outreach said that there were 22,000 adult male, 8,000 women and 30,000 young boys and girls also deeply involved in prostitution, petty thievery and touting. These numbers will pale into insignificance when compared to the figures that the NGO gave for other areas like Alaba,Mile 12, Ajegunle, Badagry, Ikorodu, and the entire 57 Local Council Development Areas of Lagos.
Without shelter, homeless Nigerians make do with under the bridges and open spaces in popular restaurants and fast food joints. To survive, they engage in petty trading, touting, pimping and prostitution. Some of them, who spoke with this reporter said that sometimes they earn close to N5,000 monthly, the equivalent of  $40, which in most cases cannot guarantee  proper feeding, not to mention a one-room apartment in Lagos.
Most homeless Nigerians live like rats and cockroaches in the six geopolitical zones of the country. Most of them are under the bridges because they cannot afford the cost of accommodation in most of the big cities where they came to look for work. Besides, the country has no low-cost housing schemes for low income earners.
 Homeless in cities like Warri, Sapele, Ughelli and Agbor in Delta State result from inability of government to guarantee housing security for her people. Residents told the magazine that they are unable to secure accommodation because of the oil-rich disposition of the state. John Udemude, a self-employed motor-repairer who lives in a shed with his family said: “because of the oil companies, landlords ask us to pay rents that resemble that of people who earn fantastic salaries in the oil companies.”
Some who can afford it are also victims. The case of Pius Eze, a former staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), proved that.  In 2005, he said he paid as much as a million naira for one of the housing units at the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian, when the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), sold off the ailing Delta Steel Company (DSC). In the ensuing fracas between the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which claimed that the BPE did not consult with it before the units was allocated, Pius lost out.
In Port Harcourt, SERAC said that the Rivers State government began demolishing homes of the Agip Waterside Community in February 2005, leaving 5,000 – 10,000 homeless. Some 1.2million were also forcibly evicted by the Rivers State government in July 2000 from Rainbow Town, Port Harcourt – a settlement for poor people dating back to the 1960s. The state government used land conflicts and purported illegal occupation as justification for the evictions and demolitions.
In Abuja, forced evictions in Lugbe, Chika and allied villages such as Alieta and Galadimawo led to the displacement of more than 800,000 persons. Most of them relocated their families to their native states, ‘while a great number of them opted to move in with friends and relatives’, a report by SERAC said.
According to Poju Onibokun, a professor of Urban and Regional Planning who was part of a Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research nobody really understands why people are homeless in Nigeria. In his words: ‘the general consensus is that rapid urban growth associated with an accelerated tempo of socio-economic development has seriously aggravated the shortage of dwelling units in Nigeria, resulting in overcrowding, high rent, slum and squatter settlements’. That, Onibokun say is untrue, citing the failure of the Third National Development Plan of 1975-80. He said that there were arguments for and against giving priority to either the urban or the rural areas of Nigeria.
Those who favour priority being given to the urban areas argue that rapid urban expansion should be accompanied by rapid expansion of public services in order to avoid environmental decline; that housing in urban areas generates greater external economies. They also maintain that urban areas have more political heavyweights and agitators and therefore investment in urban housing are more likely to yield more political benefits than investment in rural housing.  But those who believe that rural projects should take priority have argued that ‘investment in rural housing is more likely to stem rural-urban migration thereby decreasing the problem of the urban areas; and that investment in rural housing will encourage balanced national development.
 Robert Adeyemi, 31, a Real Estate Surveyor said he believes that the homeless problem will always be there as long as private estate developers together with the government place emphasis on building houses for the rich. He said that he attended a well-publicized event in Lagos where a signing ceremony took place between three banks and a private developer to build estates in an exclusive area of Lagos. According to Adeyemi, the amount involved in the building of the flats was put at N5billion, with completion time estimated at 30 months. ‘Do you know that that amount of money could build low cost housing estates for nearly a million Nigerians?, he queried. Adeyemi said that he is disappointed that nobody is asking why such schemes to build houses for the poor and homeless are not being asked.
  At the eighth Lagos Housing Fair held in Lagos, Alhaji. Lateef Jakande, former Governor of Lagos State said that federal and state governments must urgently address the homeless problem through provision of land and adequate funding. Jakande said that most workers in Nigeria were ignorant of the fact that they were entitled to loans after six months of contributing 2.5 percent of their salaries under the National Housing Fund. According to the former governor, the activities of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria are not known to majority of Nigerians who may want to take advantage of it to build their own houses.

 The major challenge is the issue of mortgage.  According to the Managing Director, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN),Gimba Y’au Kumo, the inability of the CBN to pay its equity contribution into the National Housing Fund is responsible for the apex  mortgage bank’s inability to either provide the housing needs of Nigerians or mortgage for people to build their own homes. Also, there is no mechanism for risk sharing that will encourage banks and other financial institutions to extend loans to people at the lower income level. Yet, if loans are less expensive and easier to qualify, then the property becomes more liquid.

In addition, lack of primary infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity is another concern for investors. Poor infrastructure accounts for about 35 per cent of housing costs. In most cases, investors and property developers have to provide the infrastructure which invariably increases the cost of the houses they build thus making such houses expensive.

In spite of the housing shortfall of about 18 million home units that the nation must produce to accommodate her people, single family homes units on 700square meters of land-even in government schemes-are still constructed regularly.

It is alarming that despite the small size of Lagos State and its high population, the government still comes up with estates where 650 square meters are allocated to an individual when private firms should be allowed to provide luxury homes.

A large plot size allocation deprives about six Nigerians the opportunity to own their homes in every one hectare. In America, where homes are built on large plots, there is widespread infrastructural development that makes land available for all.

Homelessness, even though an acute problem in Nigeria, also exists in the civilized world. According to a report by the United Nations titled: UN, Fund, State of the World’s Population 2007: Unleashing the Potentials of Urban Growth, there are indications that by year 2030, more than 3.3 billion people will opt to live in urban areas, even though under bridges and in cartons and cardboards. According to that same report, the number of cities of the world having people without homes will grow by 1.7 billion and the number of city dwellers will reach 5 billion. Of that figure, towns and cities of the developing world will make 81 percent of urban humanity. Another report by the United States Conference of Majors, CM, said that more people in American cities were homeless and hungry in 2006 than 2005 because the government could not meet the requests for shelter which rose by nine per cent in 2006.
 That is not all from the CM. Its official estimates for homelessness in 2006 was quoted thus on its website: On average, single men comprise 51% of the homeless population, families with children 30%, single women 17% and unaccompanied youth 2%. The homeless population is estimated to be 42% African-American, 39% white, 13% Hispanic, 4 % Native-American and 2 % Asian. An average of 16% of homeless people is considered mentally ill; 26% are substance abusers. 13% are employed; 9% are veterans. “But if you were to compare the homeless conditions of an American with that of any other homeless anywhere in the world, you would discover that they are worlds apart”, said Jennifer Kerner, an American Volunteer who visited Uromi on a medical mission in September 2007.
In the United Kingdom, majority of asylum seekers from Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda are known to endure the harsh conditions that the thoroughfares and the alleyways present to them when they leave their homes for greener pastures abroad.
Mary Namkussa, the 40-year-old Ugandan who fled her home after she was gang-raped by soldiers hunting for rebels told her story in The Independent of UK like this: “It is difficult for me to put into words how I feel about being destitute. I think living the life of a destitute person is like living like an animal, not a human being”.