BHA Initiates Discussion on Probable Housing Initiative with HPFPI

Bacolod City- (Tuesday) March 22, 2011, Bacolod Housing Authority’s (BHA) Department Head, Josephine Segundino initiated an exploratory discussion with Sonia Codornigara, Regional Coordinator for Western Visayas and Overall Programs and Services Coordinator of Homeless People’s Federation Philippines, Inc. (HPFPI) regarding a proposed socialized housing project in Bacolod City’s 58.6 hectare Granada-Vista Alegre Relocation Site II. Initial discussion targets 298 low income families informally residing along the riverbanks of Sharina Heights in Barangay Taculing. Out of the 58. 6 hectare relocation site, the city government of Bacolod City has allotted 3.52 hectares for the proposed housing project where home lot measures 64 sq. m. each.  

Other than the discussion on the proposed housing project, Cadornigara gave an update about the recent CLIFF Stakeholders Board (CSB) Meeting with a focus on the forum discussion entitled “Decent Housing, Is It Affordable?” which became a point of interest on how to advocate for exemptions and lowering down of cost of housing-related fees for the urban poor. Cadornigara raised HPFPI’s stand about some inapplicable and irrelevant provisions of the National Building Code of the Philippines particularly in matters pertaining to the housing initiatives of self-help groups. It requires permits and fees which the federation deem appropriate only to private and real estate developers like licenses to sell and building permits which are usually accomplished prior to housing construction. The city government’s capability of formulating resolutions which trim down housing-related requirements, as well as the establishment of strong partnership with national shelter agencies in order to hasten urban poor’s housing initiative were also highlighted during the meeting.

As regards the proposed housing project, the BHA pledged to draft a project proposal to be presented to Bacolod City Mayor, Evelio Leonardia for an executive approval on the following week. Conversely, Cadornigara assured that BHA’s proposal will be discussed by federation members accordingly. However, Cadornigara is looking at Urban Poor Fund International (UPFI) of the Slum Dwellers International (SDI) where Cadornigara is one of the board members, as a probable finance facility which could operationalize the proposed housing project.  

Learning from the experiences of HPFPI Iloilo on housing provision, it is evident that the partnership and support of the local government unit is very critical in determining the success of a project. Bacolod Housing Authority’s demonstration of interest on the community-driven initiatives of HPFPI particularly on the process being observed in the implementation of Community-led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) Housing and Resettlement Project shows promising signs of a successful housing and resettlement intervention of HPFPI in Bacolod City.

TAMPEI Holds Orientation Activity for CEA Students in USA

ILOILO CITY-(Friday) March 11, 2011, Technical Assistance Movement for People and Environment, Inc. (TAMPEI) held an orientation activity for the engineering and architecture students of the University of San Agustin’s (USA) College of Engineering and Architecture (CEA). The aforementioned activity was one of TAMPEI’s strategies to solicit technical support from students as a response to the pressing need of the Philippine Alliance (composed of Homeless Peoples Federation Philippines Inc. and the Philippine Action for Community-led Shelter Initiatives Inc.) for additional volunteers in the implementation of   its Slum Upgrading Initiatives and Community-led and Managed Housing Projects here in Iloilo City. It was attended by junior and senior students taking up architecture, civil, chemical and mechanical engineering from the same university, as well as some community leaders of the Philippine Alliance.

 The orientation activity started with a prayer led by Angela Cham, a 5th year architecture student and was followed by a brief introduction of participants facilitated by Engr. Reynaldo Asuncion, Dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture. Arch. Villa Mae Libutaque, TAMPEI President gave the rationale of the activity and discussed the common perception of students regarding the commercially-driven nature of their work. Libutaque stressed the fact that the poor people, especially those living in congested cities like Iloilo also need their assistance. As a follow-up to the discussion, a video presentation about the role of technical professionals in upgrading slum dwellers' physical and environmental conditions was shown to the students. It was followed by another video presentation  focusing on Philippine Alliance's community-managed housing initiatives currently supported by the Community-led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) Programme.  

Community leaders from Kabalaka and San Isidro Housing Projects presented the on-going CLIFF initiatives in San Isidro Relocation Site, Jaro and the upcoming projects for new CLIFF expansion communities in Iloilo City for the second phase. 

Given the scope of work that the HPFPI-PACSII and TAMPEI in Iloilo is currently undertaking and will be facing for the next consecutive months, Arch. Christopher Ebreo and Arch. Alcor Mandario of TAMPEI facilitated a discussion about the possible  participation or contribution of the student volunteers. Libutaque stressed out that the nature of their involvement will be tasked- based which means that students will be doing output-oriented tasks such as drafting and design works, surveying, facilitation of technical trainings and workshops,   research on alternative and low-cost housing technology, and incremental housing development. 


On the other hand, for students who will be doing internship for the federation, they will facilitate the formalization of design outputs of the housing participants and be part of construction supervision along with the site engineer. 

Sonia Cadornigara, HPFPI Coordinator for Western Visayas and Board Member of Slum Dwellers International also added that the bulk of ongoing and upcoming projects of the Philippine Alliance, especially in Iloilo City make it ideal for both architecture and engineering students to do their internship in the federation. Aside from the challenge of coming up with designs with very limited financial resources, students are also given the opportunity to supervise actual implementation of the project. “The multi-faceted nature of the required technical support of the federation makes it an ideal laboratory for students and technical professionals alike who want to learn and at the same time impart their technical skills to the urban poor sector”, Cadornigara added.

Speaking in behalf of the College of Engineering and Architecture of the University of San Agustin, Engr. Reynaldo Asuncion assured the Alliance of its continued support by linking the university's internship, research and extension programs with ongoing upgrading and housing initiatives of the urban poor sector.

Implementation of Incremental Site Development within CLIFF-San Isidro Kicks-Off

Drainage construction started in Category C wherein
families already moved in their houses.

March 4, 2011: The City District of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) started to construct yesterday the drainage system surrounding the 1.6 hectare-CLIFF-San Isidro Site, Jaro, Iloilo City. Project funding came from Congressman Jerry P. Treňas, who have been an active partner by the Philippine Alliance for city’s development on socialized housing for the poor.

This 3-million-worth of project includes the construction of main drainage canal (with one-meter-diameter reinforced concrete pipe) and 300-meter-concrete wall covered canal, targeted to be completed within two months maximum from the start of project implementation. Project contract was awarded by the DPWH to V.N. Grande Construction as contractor.

Engr. Camarista explains the technical plan for the actual
implementation of the drainage system in CLIFF site.

“We have successfully negotiated with the City District of the DPWH to realign the proposed drainage project to implement in CLIFF site because of sensible and readily available subdivision plan, technical support, and active community association”,  says Engr. Joefry Camarista, ICUPAO detailed site engineer for CLIFF-San Isidro Project.

According to Camarista, the role of the barangay also played an important role to materialize such infra project for the benefit of the newly relocated constituents. With assistance from Barangay Captain Felix S. Dureza, a letter was signed by the private landowner allowing the construction of the drainage outflow going to the river, passing through the landowner’s property.

The covered concrete canal with 2.5 meter depth

Next to implement is the concreting of approximately 750-meter-road network within the CLIFF-San Isidro community, using Congressman’s funds. Survey of the road network has been initiated on site by the City District- DPWH while the topographic map still needs to be revalidated.

Engr. Camarista is confident that road concreting will soon be implemented, with full support from the Cong. Trenas and the city government particularly the Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office, an agency concerned or in-charge in monitoring of site development in city’s provided resettlement area for the urban poor.

TAMPEI, ICUPN, HPFPI-PACSII FACILITATE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION IN HINACTACAN, LAPAZ

Iloilo City – March 04, 2011- The Technical Assistance Movement for People and Environment (TAMPEI) together with Homeless People’s Federation Philippines Inc. (HPFPI) and Philippine Action for Community-led Shelter Initiatives Inc. (PACSII) in collaboration with the Iloilo City Urban Poor Network facilitated a community consultation meeting in Barangay Hinactacan, Lapaz, Iloilo City. The meeting was organized by Benfred Tacuyan, President of the Iloilo City Urban Poor Federation, Inc. (ICUPFI) as a response to the barangay’s request for technical assistance to come up with an output which will be helpful for their initiative of securing land tenure.

 As a head start, Arch. Villa Mae Libutaque, TAMPEI President facilitated the leveling off of expectations. Lorie Bautista, one of the community members brought up her expectation and said, “We are here to listen to you since Benfred told us that you can help us solve our problems here in Hinactacan, we expect that you can provide us with tangible solutions which will be applicable to us”. Most of the participants affirmed to her response but Arch. Libutaque challenged them and said, “It should be the other way around, we are here to listen to you, tell us your problems and together, we will think about the ways on how to deal with it”.

According to local residents of Barangay Hinactacan, Lapaz, the land that they currently occupy was formerly a low-lying wetland which was and still being flooded regularly since it is located along Iloilo River and facing Iloilo-Guimaras Straight. Residents of Barangay Hinactacan are former or current workers in fish ponds surrounding the area who decided to put up some elevated huts as their temporary shelters for their convenience. In the course of time, these people who eventually developed the land by land filling, put up house structures and started to raise their family there.

Just a few years ago, a land owner from a neighboring lot made a proposal of building a memorial park on the lot area adjacent to Barangay Hinactacan.  This proposal has raised the local residents’ concern on their security of land tenure. Majority of them feared of being evicted considering that they do not have any legal documents which will support their claim of occupancy and right to the land. In order to clear up the issues, the said landowner called for a meeting and settled their issues by presenting the exact location of the lot where he intended to build the memorial park.  Confident that they will not be evicted from the land that they presently occupy because of what the landowner said, the community members started to disregard the issue. Years later, after the death of the aforementioned landowner, his wife started to claim the land as their property. She made a deal which required the residents of Hinactacan to pay for the rent of the land and even offered the property for sale.

The unexpected problem which arise due to the claim revived the threat of eviction which the community-felt years ago.

As a response, the community made initial research about the status of the land. Their initial findings showed ambiguous results which made it very difficult for the community to determine the real owner of the lot. The only thing that they hold on to is the likelihood that the land is a government property which they hope to be proclaimed by the President as a socialized housing site.

As suggested by Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office (ICUPAO), proponents of the housing proclamation should submit to Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) a letter request together with a list of actual occupants of the area duly certified by the ICUPAO, sketch map and boundary description of the area or property.


As a response, TAMPEI facilitated a community mapping together with five (5) community members who are very much familiar with the frontier and the geographical area of Barangay Hinactacan, Lapaz. With the assistance of Arch. Libutaque and Arch. Ebreo of TAMPEI, community members draw the house structure, alleys, and boundaries of the barangay and eventually measured its perimeter. Data or information gathered through spot mapping and measurement will then  be formalized by the aforementioned technical assistants. Moreover, Helen Villarin, a community leader from HPFP suggested the conduct of an enumeration. She gave an orientation on how to use the HPFPI community survey form as it would be useful in coming up with a comprehensive barangay profile.

Currently an estimated total of 120 house structures with a population of 737 people reside in the area. Although the assistance extended by TAMPEI, ICUPN and HPFP-PACSII seems an indecisive solution to the community’s problem, certainly it has shown signs of concern among the urban poor communities which will surely strengthen their cooperation.

Philippine Alliance Hosts RLP Event and CSB Meeting

Achieving scale in housing and basic infrastructure services provision while building on community- driven strategies, institutional and policy support from public and private partners was the main trajectory underscored during the CLIFF Reflection Learning and Planning (RLP) Event as well as the CLIFF Stakeholders’ Board (CSB) Meeting Proper held in Iloilo City last February 5-9, 2011.  The event was organized by the Philippine Alliance composed of Homeless People’s Federation Philippines Inc. and the Philippine Action for Community-led Shelter Initiatives Inc. in coordination with the Homeless International, a UK-based NGO responsible for the over-all management of the Community–led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF).  CLIFF is a global programme that aims to support organized communities to demonstrate slum upgrading solutions using a recyclable finance facility. 

CLIFF Partners who participated in the CSB Meeting were: Philippine Alliance, Indian Alliance, National Cooperative Housing Union Ltd. (NACHU), Pamoja Trust, Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT), Muungano Wanavijiji and Lumanti. This created a venue for each CLIFF partner to share and learn from other countries’ experiences, success stories, and challenges in CLIFF implementation from community mobilization, planning, design and construction and fund management aspects including partnership building and networking.

CLIFF Philippines in Focus

 

The first day of the learning exchange focused on CLIFF Philippine experience. Local and international delegates were exposed to two CLIFF- supported projects in Iloilo City: the KABALAKA Demonstration Housing and Community Managed Resettlement Housing Projects. Likewise, the Philippine Alliance facilitated a sharing discussion highlighting the community-led processes in all aspects of the CLIFF management cycle. Equally important in project implementation are the valuable contributions of different stakeholders like the government, academic institutions, private sector and the institution of technical support known as the Technical Assistance Movement for People and Environment, Inc (TAMPEI), which remarkably gained appreciation from local and international CLIFF partners.

Also, Alliance shared about its challenges in CLIFF Project implementation.  Among these are its difficulty in facilitating social preparation activities, assessing target participants’ loan affordability levels, sustaining communities’ participation in CLIFF-related trainings and workshops, procurement and actual housing construction, dealing with communities’ labor equity and CLIFF loan repayment issues, and strengthening its partnerships and networks.

CLIFF-Wide Sharing

Following this whole day activity, a CLIFF-wide sharing was facilitated by the Homeless International which provided participants a global perspective of CLIFF programme and how it is managed in other countries. This was also an opportunity for CLIFF partners to discuss their important breakthroughs in CLIFF implementation, their foreseen challenges and insights for successful scaling-up.

The Indian Alliance’s presentation highlighted the organization’s strategies in developing financing mechanisms in the context of slum upgrading and housing for informal settlements. Very notable about the Indian Alliance’s experience is its worth and innovativeness in leveraging financial resources from the government and private financing institutions to subsidize CLIFF Projects. While CLIFF India has gone so far in terms of scale, the Alliance recognizes that numerous challenges are still underway. These include time delays, increasing construction cost, political impediments and the need to explore and adopt community-driven construction practices that could further scale-up community-managed construction projects.

In Kenya, CLIFF programme was instrumental in federation building which apparently strengthened communities’ capacities and project involvement in areas like savings mobilization, enumeration, community mapping, site planning, construction management, loan repayment and collection.  Kenya’s experience on CLIFF has shown that communities are capable of building their own houses. They just need sustainable access to affordable finance, motivation and facilitation. While security of tenure is regarded as one of the crucial elements of a decent housing, CLIFF provided communities a leeway to achieve it incrementally. The slow pace of loan recovery in some CLIFF-supported projects is one of the present challenges faced by the Kenyan Alliance. Thus, in order to support communities in their loan repayment, they learned that income generating activities should be incorporated in the CLIFF programme.

The National Cooperative Housing Union Ltd. (NACHU) and Lumanti, the two new CLIFF implementing partners from Kenya and Nepal provided a background profile of their organizations, their key initiatives and their significant milestones in the housing sector. Operating on a microfinance-based framework, NACHU adopts a holistic approach in delivering affordable and sustainable housing to the urban poor. It basically integrates savings mobilization; incremental mode in housing development; provision of organizational, technical and financial support services to target groups; and mainstreaming gender, environment, lobbying and advocacy issues in designing housing solutions for slum dwellers. Similarly, Lumanti has developed wide-ranging strategies which are essential take-off points for the CLIFF programme implementation.

“After many years of struggle, some changes are seen.  Communities organised.  Government is getting positive.  Some resources are allocated and partnership is possible.  However, struggles need to be continued for scaling up the small changes achieved and for effective sustenance of a new beginning that has just started”. These encouraging statements from Sama Upreti, one of the learning exchange participants showed that Lumanti has successfully gained recognition and support from the government and other stakeholders which is viewed as a vital factor when housing is to be delivered sustainably.

Larry English, Executive Director of Homeless International discussed how the CLIFF programme supports the development of civil society organizations in delivering shelter and basic services solutions on a sustainable basis. He presented a framework describing the different levels of support services that these organizations need to become financially, technically and politically dependent while achieving project scale.

Decent Housing: Is It Affordable? – A Forum Discussion

CLIFF funding partners from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Department for International Development (DFID) joined the rest of the learning exchange participants during the third day’s area visit. This gave them an idea about the progress of the ongoing CLIFF-Community Managed Resettlement Housing Project in San Isidro, Jaro.  Likewise, they were exposure to the production facility and construction application of the alternative building technology called Interlocking Compressed Earth Blocks (ICEB) in CLIFF San Isidro Project. Most of them were inspired by the community’s involvement in planning, house design, procurement, construction and over-all project management. They also visited another community in Zone 8, Veterans Village, which is targeted as the next site for CLIFF expansion this year. 

A back-back activity with the area visit was a forum discussion on the topic “Decent Housing: Is it Affordable?”. This event was organized by the Philippine Alliance as an advocacy strategy to influence national housing regulations and policies. Specifically, the forum discussion aims to evaluate the government and private sector’s current approaches, practices, institutional and financial support mechanisms in delivering decent and affordable housing to the poor. This event was an opportunity for international partners to understand the complexity of housing laws and regulations in the Philippines which sometimes limit the exploration of alternative and more affordable housing solutions.

Invited speakers during the forum discussion were Engr. Isagani Jalbuena, from the National Housing Authority (NHA) Region VI; Engr. Gil Ramos and Marilyn Susteger from the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) Region VI; Arch. Regie Gregorio from the Iloilo City Engineering Office; Juanita Genovania-Artiola from PAG-IBIG Region VI; Engr. Rony Firmeza former Chairman of the Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office and Mr. Jose Roni S.J. Peñalosa, Head Officer of Iloilo City Planning and Development Office (CPDO).  These key shelter and local government representatives assured the Philippine Alliance of their continued support to the urban poor sector and their current housing initiatives.

CLIFF Stakeholders’ Board Meeting Proper

After the four-day reflection, learning and planning event, all CLIFF partners gathered last February 8 and 9 for the CLIFF Stakeholders’ Board (CSB) Meeting to discuss CLIFF Project updates and key results of their last year’s Business plan. This meeting was also convened for the deliberation and approval of this year’s proposed CLIFF projects. 

CLIFF RLP, A Success!

Having seen the current progress and scaling-up potentials of CLIFF-supported projects in the Philippines, donor agencies, Homeless International and other CLIFF partners were optimistic that this progress could lead to greater results. This is only possible if the Philippine Alliance has sustainable organizational, financial, technical and institutional support.  It is noteworthy that the impressive involvement and logistical support from Iloilo City government, partner academic institutions and local communities during the Reflection, Learning, Planning and the CSB have significantly contributed in making this weeklong event a successful one.