Evictions no solution to city's housing problem

Marco Kusumawijaya, Architect, Jakarta

The violence with which the Jakarta city administration recently evicted the urban poor from their river bank community has shocked many, especially given indications of arson.

We should be concerned, not only about the poor, but about a government that we all contribute to financially which seems to lack understanding of a very basic human right.

And this is not the first time. Another appalling example, still before the courts, involves the eviction of people from the area below the elevated railroad in Kampung Karang Anyar, Central Jakarta.

The government mostly argues that the inhabitants are illegal and claims it protects wider environmental concerns or other public interests. Most disdainful is its argument that the evicted urban poor are "migrants" from other areas in Indonesia, not the deserving permanent residents of Jakarta.

Those arguments are not only naive and misguided, but also cruel. Violent eviction and banning alone, without any viable alternative, has proved to be a non-solution. At best, they shift problems from one place to another and keep the poor out of sight only temporarily.

The United Nations' covenant on social economic rights declares housing as a universal human right. Each and every government is responsible to take care of not only their own citizens, but all that reside in its country. If this principle is applicable among sovereign nations, it certainly should apply among local governments in a united state of Indonesia.

Illegality is an illusive argument. Many of the houses in the illegal settlements have registered electrical and telephone connections. While the issue of illegality is correct, its solution is not single-minded -- let alone violent -- evictions.

Many cities in developing countries, including Kendari and Palu in eastern Indonesia, accommodate urban "illegal" settlers in one form or another. They are either given certified titles over the lands they are occupying, or moved to other titled lands. The basic issue is not legality, but availability of land for the urban poor. Legality can be endowed by a willing authority.

Are lands available in Jakarta? The administration, Jakarta, through its companies such as Sarana Jaya and Pasar Jaya controls hundreds, if not thousands, of hectares of land. The lands that are often cleared on behalf of "public interest", such as protection of river banks or other environmental concerns, have in some cases been re-allocated for commercial purposes.

The coastal natural reserve in North Jakarta was transformed into high-income commercial housing estates. On spaces below the elevated railroads in Karang Anyar, where from hundreds of families were evicted, are now dozens of kiosks erected by the railway company.

The so-called river right-of-ways are not without possibilities to be optimized to give spaces to the poor. The National Housing Corporation Perumnas controls hundreds of hectares of land in the city.

On one of their largest chunks at the West Jakarta Outer Ring Road, however, they are currently building houses for ever higher income groups. There are also hundreds of hectares of wasted lands resulting from and surrounding the construction of large toll road interchanges. One of these is just across the burned Kampung Tanggul Indah by Pluit interchange in North Jakarta.

Why not subsidize lands to the poor, instead of charity subsidies?

The urban poor need space more than money or other consumable subsidies. The very reason they have been occupying marginal lands inside or nearby city centers is survival. They ought to be close to employment opportunities and cheap resources, such as river water even if it is polluted, and garbage dumping sites from where they can salvage any items of value.

Of course, even if they wanted to live in better places on "legal" lands, they could not afford them under the current system.

It is indeed hard enough for average middle-income groups to afford lands and houses inside the city. And this is no simple capitalist mystery. It is more the lack of policy by the city government to plan and control affordability of lands and housings inside the city.

They are more interested in increasing commercial land-use, as this yields more short-term gains for city coffers as well as creates private wealth for some corrupt city officials.

For the poor, the larger the city, the more "location" is crucial for their survival. But this locational value is not even for profit as is the case with developers. Locational value is just basic for their survival, considering the high cost of transport.

"Space, not money" has been exposed as the required assistance for the poor. But the irony and hypocrisy continues: More charity subsidies are given while no real policy is being made to allocate affordable spaces for the urban poor. It may seem difficult to promote such a policy. Poverty is not likely seen as a persistent reality. Instead, it is illusively seen as an unwanted reality that should visually disappear from the city, as if the city is a fantasy land only for the rich.

Without a viable policy to control land prices and make them affordable for housing of the poor and middle-income groups alike, there is no other place to go for the poor but public space, wherever it is!

It is of course important to protect rivers and other environmental reserves, but it is a noble obligation to take care of the citizens with human rights. Not to forget: Studies show that urban poor in Jakarta are as productive as others. They are functional in the economy of the city, and not at all are parasites like many of the city's corrupt officials.