The Niall Mellon Township Trust has built 10,000 homes for the poor in South Africa since 2002, but the growing population means there are fewer sites to build on, writes BILL CORCORANin Cape Town
THE IMIZAMO YETHU township near Cape Town, the informal settlement where Irishman Niall Mellon began his philanthropic mission to help house South Africa's poorest citizens, will not be inundated with Irish builders during next month's annual week-long charity building blitz.
This year, the contingent of volunteers number over 2,000 people, who will pay €5,000 each to participate, half of which is donated to cover building costs. They are heading to Khayelitsha, a sprawling informal settlement on the outskirts of the Western Cape's capital, to build 250 homes.
When the volunteers march into Khayelitsha, one of the country's biggest and poorest informal settlements, to begin their first day's work, they will undoubtedly be daunted by the scale of the challenge Mellon has decided to undertake.
At the second Inyathelo Philanthropy Awards hosted in Cape Town this month Mellon said that, in partnership with the South African government, the Niall Mellon Township Trust (NMTT) has completed 10,000 homes since 2002. While it was a great achievement, he said, it would be dwarfed by the increases his housing production line would produce by 2010, when the charity plans to build 10,000 houses a year for shack dwellers.
Even though the South African government has managed to build two million homes since 1994, a further two million homes at least are needed to tackle the current housing backlog, which in reality will grow as time passes.
"From the very beginning we said we were here to support South Africa's efforts, and the obstacles we encountered, we would do our best to overcome them," Mellon told The Irish Times. "But when you have population growths that exceed the levels of houses being built . . . Well, you can see the problems we face in meeting the demand."
Problems and moral dilemmas are par for the course when trying to house South Africa's poor, and for Mellon some of the issues stretch back to when he first started building homes in 2002 in Imizamo Yethu.
Due to bureaucracy, shack dwellers there struggled to access government subsidies for people who qualify for low-cost housing, so Mellon advanced the beneficiaries the value of their individual grant - plus an interest-free loan - to pay for increasing the size of the house.
"Back in 2002 we felt the government's house size was too small so we increased our size and provided a loan to cover the extra cost. The money was to be repaid to the charity over time and used to build new houses. But unfortunately it hasn't worked out that way," says Mellon. To date, 75 per cent of the beneficiaries have stopped repaying their loan, with most unable to pay it due to unemployment. But the government's subsidy has increased significantly since then so a repeat of that situation is unlikely.
Another dilemma to emerge relates to the reappearance of shacks beside the beneficiaries' new homes. While the idea is to eradicate shacks in the long term, people are so poor they often rebuild the flimsy dwellings and rent them out to others in need of a place to stay. But Mellon sees this development as less problematic, viewing it as "entrepreneurship by people who have limited ways to make money".
However, the scarcity of useful land on which to build - due to people's need to be close to already-crowded urban centres to avail of work - gives rise to one of the most heartbreaking and contentious issues facing anyone involved in producing low-cost houses here.
The problem is an ethical dilemma that relates to the eviction of shack dwellers from plots earmarked for low-cost homes for others higher up the queue on the national housing list. Is it right to evict one person to house another?
Anything up to four families can reside in tiny shacks on a plot where one low-cost house can fit. In many cases, those removed to make way end up in shacks further away from the few public services available to them, effectively making life more difficult.
The South African government's leading housing initiative, the N2 Gateway project, which plans to build 22,000 houses, has been mired in controversy for the past few years as thousands of shack dwellers have been forcibly removed from plots to accommodate others.
Between 16,000 and 20,000 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement near Cape Town city centre unsuccessfully opposed their forced removal to a township 20km outside the city because they say living there would further reduce their already poor living standards.
According to Mellon, who is not involved in the N2 project but is subject to government housing policies, the scarcity of land dilemma is "possibly the most difficult aspect to deal with", given they are trying to help everyone in need.
"It is hard for us to imagine that some people don't own the shacks they live in; that's real poverty. But we don't pay anyone to move. Instead, we use persuasion; we lobby and do our best to facilitate. In Imizamo Yethu the families who got houses from us were the first 450 who occupied the informal settlement," he explained. While such an approach is fair under the circumstances, for people such as Vuyo Kazi Majaede, who had to leave her shack in Mufuleni township, where NMTT and the government have built 1,122 houses, it is hard to take.
"I am on the housing list and was living in my shack when I was asked to leave, so others could get a home. People get angry when this happens, but what can we do? The government says I must wait my turn," she says.
The situation is effectively a Catch-22, because to do nothing would leave everyone in squalor, and the Irish charity's decision to take on the challenge, despite the difficulties, is having a significant impact in South Africa in more ways than the obvious one.
Despite their absence from Imizamo Yethu, due to a lack of available land to build on, the generosity of spirit of the Irish volunteers who worked there appears to have infected some of the richer white residents of Hout Bay, where the township is located. According to township resident Sophia Morris, who received one of the first Mellon-sponsored homes in 2003, houses are now being built for a few of her neighbours by some of the very people who eyed them with suspicion only a few years ago.
"It is amazing what is happening. Some of the rich whites from across the river, those we work for, are beginning to help us. When we lived in shacks they would not even come into the township, but now they see we are human beings.
"A few whites are paying to build their staff homes, and others are helping by buying things like furniture. We have dignity and pride now because of our homes, so they see us differently, but it is the Irish who led by example," she explained to The Irish Times.
Prior to the arrival of Mellon and his Irish volunteers at Imizamo Yethu, the relationship between the majority of Hout Bay's polar opposite communities had not moved on from the wary and fearful one fostered by the apartheid regime's racist policies.
When Mellon first began to build houses in the informal settlement, many white Hout Bay residents were against his plan - and openly said so - as it would effectively cement the unwanted black community's presence in what they believed was "their" area.
While the construction of a few houses by whites for blacks does not indicate a sea change in attitude from a population still suffocated by racism, it does offer a glimmer of hope, which is something Mellon and his organisation needs to harness if they are going to achieve their new goals.
The NMTT already employs 80 full-time and over 2,000 sub-contracted staff in South Africa, and is the largest charity provider of homes for low-income families in the country, building one in every five homes in Cape Town and one in every 18 in Gauteng Province, the country's economic heartland.
Contrary to popular belief, Mellon does not have numerous business and development interests in South Africa. "Although I get attributed the ownership of many Irish ventures there, in reality I have one commercial interest, which is part ownership of a large farm near George . The farm is standing idle at present, although it does have development potential," he said.
To achieve Mellon's lofty goal of eradicating shack dwellings, the NMTT needs to inspire an ever-increasing number of South African volunteers to the cause, and it appears word of their exploits has spread beyond Cape Town over the past six years. This year alone a local recruitment drive has harnessed the strength and money of 1,200 local volunteers who have participated in one-day building blitzes across the country.