Housing for all depends on political will Ivan Hadar  ;  An architect, city planner and president director of the Institute for Democracy Education (IDE)

JAKARTA POST, 29 Desember 2014

                                                

                                                                                                                       

According to official estimates, the demand for housing in Indonesia has reached a huge number: at least 7.5 million units, and it will increase annually by approximately 1.5 million units. More than that, the official estimates of housing needs do not fully reflect the realities of the housing situation. Missing are the millions of families who are registered as owning a residence that does not meet eligibility standards. In general, the housing crisis is marked by slum housing, including sheds and illegal shelters in river floodplains and under bridges, that has expanded and reached into most corners of large cities. The housing crisis is also marked by social-space inequalities resulting in the number of houses occupied exceeding the capacity, a very high housing density in certain regions, the unavailability of space for privacy, the loss of public space and recreation and housing locations that are at some distance from workplaces. As a member of Habitat International, Indonesia has officially ratified the housing basic needs clause. The Constitution also clearly states that “the state is obliged to help to provide proper houses for the people of Indonesia”. Similarly, the 2000 Law on the National Development Program (Propenas) and the building act of 2003 also require local governments to “empower the poor who do not have access to housing.” All these constitutional directives aim to provide access to housing for the people of Indonesia, especially for lower-income families. Theoretically, the housing crisis and its solutions can be considered from the perspectives of two major groups. The first group views the housing crisis as a “capital and income issue,” whereas the second group sees it as a “cleanliness, health and regulations issue.” For the first group, the housing crisis is directly related to the high price of land as a result of unproductive ownership, land and building speculation and the control of housing stock and land by only a few people. This perspective has succeeded in exposing various negative behaviors on the part of housing developers. This criticism of housing and land speculation is supported by many progressive thinkers, urban planners and local politicians who, in several countries, have been successful in initiating the housing reform movement. The solutions offered attempt to address the financial issues, such as the lack of funding for the development of modest housing, the high interest rates for home mortgage loans, mortgage manipulations in order to speculatively auction the land and the low level of community income. Meanwhile, the perspective that is held by the second group reduces the housing crisis to only an issue of village renovation and rejuvenation, a culture of poverty and a lack of government supervision caused by the expansion of slum housing. These various views mark the long history of housing policy in this country. The funding required for adequate housing is beyond the financial capacity of those who need housing. Thus, a kind of selection process eventually occurs, which sacrifices those who are weak. The utilization of high-rise apartments in Jakarta, for example, was initially conceived for those who could not otherwise afford housing. Yet in practice this housing is often controlled by those who turn the apartments into a business proposition by buying and then renting them. The dilemma is rooted in the fact that the housing problem is closely related to a funding issue. Also, the concept of self-help by the community will not, by itself, be able to overcome the problem from a larger perspective. Several lessons from other countries could prove useful in finding a housing solution for Indonesia. Singapore presents an example of the dominant role of government in overcoming a housing problem. This city-state established the Housing Development Board in 1960, a time when a large number of people were still living in unhygienic, potentially hazardous slums and crowded squatter settlements packed in the city centers. With government support to acquire land at cheap prices, the HDB proceeded to build and rent houses, especially to those in the lower income strata. At present, about 84 percent of Singaporeans live in HDB housing. Singapore also has the Central Provident Fund, an old-age social security fund that collects money from workers and employers and also supports housing development. For Indonesia, land seized from big developers who have problems with the Bank Restructuring Board (BPPN) could be utilized to build housing for the lower- and middle-income groups, a demographic that has often faced difficulties because of the high price of urban land. Meanwhile, the Civil Servants Housing Savings (Taperum) could be expanded to a wider scope and assist with solving the housing issue. Germany shows another example. Following World War II, in which the majority of German cities were heavily damaged by Allied bombing, Germany made the development of housing a key engine of economic development through the provision of tax incentives, cheap credit and related incentives to those developers who would build housing for the lower and middle classes. Despite the relatively small profit margin, there was almost a 100 percent certainty of the developers earning a profit from these building activities. Thus, it should not be surprising that more than 60 percent of the housing in Germany was built by developers under this government incentive program. Those who seek greater profits must, of course, face correspondingly greater market risks. There are many opportunities to solve the housing crisis in Indonesia. The political will of the new government to create the condition of “housing for all” and the willingness of all parties to find a healthy balance to the various interests are the two key prerequisites for solving the country’s housing problems. The rest is a technical issue. ●