Chapter 3 Urban Housing and Exclusion

Chapter 3 Urban Housing and Exclusion © Florian Lang/ActionAid Gautam Bhan ● Geetika Anand Amogh Arakali ● Anushree Deb Swastik Harish 77 India Exclusion Report 2013-14 1. Introduction In different ways, however, these contrasting imaginations of housing eventually see it as an Housing is many things to many people. The asset to be accessed, consumed and used, be it by National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (2007) households or developers, for use or exchange. sees housing and shelter as ‘basic human needs Housing is, in other words, an end unto itself. 1 next to only food or clothing’, putting makaan in However, housing is not just what it is but what it its familiar place beside roti and kapda. The United does. Declaring affordable housing to be a sector Nations agrees, speaking of the ‘right to adequate marked for priority lending, the Reserve Bank of housing as a human right owever, the ualifer— India spoke not just of access to housing but of the ‘adequate’—begins to push at the boundaries of what ‘employment generation potential of these sectors’.4 is meant when talking about ‘housing’. Adequacy Similarly, for the National Housing Bank, housing here includes a litany of elements: ‘(a) legal security is a basic need but also ‘a valuable collateral that of tenure; (b) availability of services, materials, can enable the access of credit from the fnancial facilities and infrastructure; (c) affordability; (d) market’.5 Others argue that housing is a vector habitability; (e) accessibility; (f) location; and to other developmental capabilities. Without it, 2 (g) cultural adequacy’. In the move from ‘house’ health, education, psycho-social development, to ‘housing’, the materiality of the dwelling unit cultural assimilation, belonging, and economic expands to include legal status, infrastructure, development are impossible. As a bidi worker and aesthetics, as well as the relationship of the house member of the Self-Employed Women’s Association to the city at large. (SEWA), Manjuben, says, ‘My house is my asset, oth these defnitions share a common, unstated my savings, my workshop, and my place to rest refrain: the consequences of exclusion from a basic and belong.’6 Debates within development circles human need or right are such that, in most societies, disagree only about where the virtuous or vicious such exclusions are seen as ethically and often cycle begins—the fact that these developmental legally unacceptable. It is important to note that capabilities are interlinked is widely accepted. while housing policy and programmes in India have It is, therefore, within the multiple meanings emphasized an ethical commitment to increasing and roles of housing (as need, right, commodity, access to housing, the latter is not a textual, infrastructure, legal status, and fnancial asset as constitutional right in India. Legal jurisprudence well as the dual nature of housing (as an end in itself does, however, offer signifcant precedents— as well as a means to other desired outcomes) that though even these are contested, as will be seen it is essential to approach the question of exclusion later—that many have used to argue that access to in access to housing. In this chapter, this is done so housing is a derived right, and certainly one of the from a particular location. It is argued, in keeping 3 entitlements that a state owes to its citizens. with the framework of this report, that access to Other discourses of housing speak at some affordable and appropriate housing must be seen distance from the claims of ‘rights’ and ‘needs’. as a public good, the protection and provision of They speak of housing more as a commodity to be which requires strong public commitment and bought and sold as per the dictates of supply and action in multiple ways, including an unambiguous demand—to each as she or he can afford. Housing framing of housing as a right and entitlement. here is closer to the narrower economic categories This is primarily for two reasons: (a) a belief that of real estate and property, both its means and ends the economic, social, political, and developmental reconfgured he two imaginations sometimes implications of exclusions from housing, unlike with overlap: as developers building ‘affordable housing’ private goods, make life with dignity impossible; units demand concessions from the state, they and (b) the structure of the housing market is such draw upon both the commodity nature of housing that reasonable access is deeply prone to entrenched as well as recognition of the social and need-based exclusions in the absence of corrective intervention characteristics of the commodity they produce. and public action. The authors are all part of the Academic and Research Team, Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Primary and corresponding author: Gautam Bhan, [email protected]. 78 Urban Housing and Exclusion It is the nature and form of this public action housing shortage. The report is currently the most that is the focus of the analysis. To shape public authoritative public data on housing shortage in action, however, is it important to frst understand the country, widely reported in the media as well as the particularity and nature of different exclusions used by policy makers in formulating the 12th Five in access to housing. This chapter traces these Year Plan. The paragraphs that follow present the exclusions, looking both at what housing is and ommittees fndings and its concept of housing what housing does. It is important to note that this poverty’, but then extends the latter beyond the is done so focussing on urban housing. Section two ommittees defnition of the chapter characterizes a particular approach The Kundu Committee Report argues that the to understanding what is commonly understood overall housing shortage in India is of the order of as ‘housing shortage’, or the ‘lack of housing’, 18.78 million units. Table 3.1 lays out the estimation and identifes the maor groups that face such of this shortage, along with comparisons with both exclusions from urban housing. It combines three the earlier Kundu Committee Report as well as the elements within ‘shortage’: (a) homelessness; Census of 2001. b an expanded defnition of housing poverty7 and (c) illegality. In doing so, the chapter agrees ho bears the brunt of this shortage he with and nuances further what A. M. Kundu et al. nearly 19 million units are concentrated in, and have called, in the Kundu Committee Report, the almost entirely accounted for by, a particular dilemma of ‘affordable housing that is inadequate, income segment of the population. Figure 3.1 and adequate housing that is unaffordable’8 with shows that in 2007 nearly 100 per cent and in 2012 reference to the particular nature of exclusions a little over 95 per cent of the shortage in housing from access to housing in India’. affected families classifed as either part of the ow Income Group (LIG, household income between Section three of the chapter then looks at how `5,000–10,000 a month) or Economically Weaker homelessness, housing poverty and illegality impact Sections (EWS, household income under `5,000 a other capabilities, namely basic environmental month).9 The commonly heard refrain that, ‘even services, including water supply, sanitation, middle class and working households cannot afford drainage, solid waste management, health and adequate housing’ in Indian cities is untrue. The education, mobility, economic capacities, as housing market does not, as is commonly believed, well as socio-political belonging and citizenship. exclude large number of middle and working class Section four explores the structural causes of this communities from adequate housing, though it exclusion he concluding and fnal section of the may well exclude them from the kind of housing chapter offers a set of approaches for public policy stock they want. and action, to deal with housing and the redressal of its exclusions. Yet, it is in disaggregating the shortage into different constituent elements that Kundu et al. allow for a useful conceptual lens to understand 2. The Nature of Exclusion: housing shortage. Let us take each element in turn. Decoding Housing ‘Shortage’ How can one understand current exclusions 2.2 Homelessness within access to housing In this section, three key The Kundu Committee Report measures conceptual ways to understand such exclusions are homelessness at 0.53 million households. These laid out: (a) homelessness; (b) housing poverty; fgures are widely thought to be underestimations, and (c) illegality. particularly given that homelessness is defned by a lack of abode, address and even a fxed spatial 2.1 The Kundu Committee Report (2012) location. Added to this, many people who are homeless lack even a single formal document that Data is drawn frst from the report of the undu allows them to prove identity. Given this, it is worth Committee, constituted as a technical group by quoting rather extensively from one of the few large the Planning Commission of India to estimate sample studies on homelessness that exists. This 79 India Exclusion Report 2013-14 Table 3.1 Estimates of Housing Shortage Housing Deficit 2001 2007 2012 Total Number of Households (HH) 55.83 66.3 81.35 Total Housing Stock (HS) 50.95 58.83 78.48 Housing Deficit (HH-HS) 4.88 7.47 2.87 Households requiring new housing Up-gradation of Kutcha Housing 1.7 Not included Not included 1. Living in non-serviceable kutcha housing - 2.18 0.99 2. Living in obsolescent housing 2.01 2.39 2.27 3. Living in congested housing 1.97 12.67 14.99 4. Homeless Not included Not included 0.53 Sub-Total (1+2+3+4) 5.68 17.24 18.78 Housing Deficit (HH-HS) 4.88 7.47 Not included Total Housing Shortage 10.56 24.71 18.78 ll fgures are in millions Source: A.

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