Augmented informality: South Africa's backyard dwellings as a by-product of formal housing policies

Abstract

Insufficient and inadequate housing for the urban poor has a long history in South Africa, as in other African cities. Nearly one-fifth of urban households in South Africa reside in an informal dwelling. While most live in informal settlements, significant proportions have erected informal structures (essentially ‘shacks’) in the backyard of another property, a distinctly South African phenomenon. Backyard dwellings have historically been overlooked by housing policies that focus on upgrading and/or eradicating informal settlements. Previously, backyard dwellers were perceived as marginalised, living in appalling conditions and exploited by cavalier landlords. However, the post-apartheid provision of state-funded housing for the poor has altered the nature of backyard housing, creating a new class of cash-poor homeowners who are dependent on income from backyard dwellers' rent, thus ensuring a more equitable power pendulum between landlord and tenant. This paper uses research conducted in a low-income state-subsidised housing settlement in Cape Town to explore the new dimensions of informal backyard housing, both for landlords and tenants, as a consequence of South Africa's formal housing policies.

Introduction

In December 2007 more than 1000 backyard shack dwellers invaded unfinished houses in Cape Town's N2 Gateway project. Impatient with waiting for housing and tired of politicians' promises, families moved into partially-built houses that lacked doors or windows, painting their names on walls to indicate territory (Cape Times, 2007). Despite legal precedents of granting invaders their right to housing, the Cape High Court dismissed backyard dwellers' demands and ordered their eviction the following February (Cape Times, 2008). The core of the dispute lay in the proposed housing allocation for the N2 Gateway project: 70% to informal settlement residents and 30% to backyard dwellers from the locality. In protest at their marginalisation and angry that their needs were overlooked in favour of informal settlement residents in the proposed housing allocation, backyard dwellers unsuccessfully demanded a 50:50 distribution. Despite failing to achieve their demands, the profile of backyard dwellers had never before been so prominent in everyday, media and official discourses in Cape Town.

Problems related to informal housing are nothing new for cities of the global South, but have increasingly received international attention, recently articulated in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 7/11 to achieve “a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers” (UN, 2000). Despite criticism of the term ‘slum’ (Gilbert, 2007) the MDG goal recognises the problems of informal living as a major global challenge. UN-HABITAT (2003a), mandated to achieve this goal, estimate that one billion people live in ‘slums’, predicted to double over the next 30 years. Such statistics conjure images of mile after mile of ‘shacks’, a sea of poverty-stricken homes built from metal, plastic and wood, arranged in an irregular fashion with alleys criss-crossing homes, and with minimal access to basic infrastructure and services. However, not all informal housing is situated in collective areas. The emphasis on ‘slums’ overlooks a lesser known sub-set of informal housing: backyard dwellings.

Backyard dwellings are informal shacks, typically erected by their occupiers in the yards of other properties, and are a uniquely South African phenomenon (Crankshaw, Gilbert, & Morris, 2000).¹ Some backyards host multiple shacks, and landlords typically share electricity, water, sanitation and refuse collection with backyard tenants, in return for rent.² Backyard dwellings lack the mass visibility and collective force of an informal settlement,³ being instead merged into existing residential areas and functioning alongside neighbours with formal tenure rights and access to infrastructure and services. This paper explores the dimensions of informal backyard housing in a relatively new context, located within state-subsidised housing settlements. The paper argues that South Africa's formal housing policies have indirectly encouraged backyard housing and have thereby augmented informality in South African cities, the exact opposite of the policy's intentions. Within this context, analysis considers why backyard dwellings exist, both for tenants and landlords, as well as analysing the landlord–tenant relationship. In addition, broader questions related to the function of backyard dwellings within the city, particularly for policymakers, but also landlords and tenants, are considered. For while backyard dwellings generate income for poor homeowners and provide serviced accommodation for poor tenants, they also perpetuate informal forms of living and thus hamper the government vision of eradicating informality in favour of “suburban bliss” (Robins, 2002), as well as contradicting government prioritisation of homeownership over rental housing.⁴

These questions are addressed by analysing data from research undertaken in a low-income settlement in Cape Town, comprising 650 formal houses, which owners received through the government housing subsidy scheme, most of which host informal dwellings in backyards. In September 2006, a survey of 100 households (both homeowners and backyard tenants) was undertaken, using random sampling techniques to ensure a broad range of demographic profiles. The survey asked residents quantitative and qualitative questions about their housing experiences, and this paper draws on material related to respondent's experiences of backyard dwellings, as neighbours, landlords and tenants.