Over the last few years, a number of exciting innovations have been made to Habitat’s traditional methodology. A few of these are described in some detail below:
i. The Savings-led Approach to Housing – Save and Build
Since the sustainability of Habitat’s ‘revolving fund’ in the community depended on the ability of the home partner to pay back her loan, it was difficult for Habitat to select
Sustainable Places and Communities 135 families with incomes below a certain level. Thus, a large
majority of the poor were deprived of the opportunity to own their own secure home. Habitat’s Save & Build came to their rescue.
The main objectives of Save & Build were as follows: a. Enable low income families to own a house.
b. Make repayment affordable through building in stages and manageable through peer pressure as well as peer strength
c. Make the program community-owned through its active involvement.
d. Build more houses with less capital input to make the program more sustainable.
How does it work?
Save and Build begins with a group of low income families, typically 12 in a group, coming together to cooperatively generate cash income, set aside savings and contribute labor and materials. Saving at the rate of about 16 US cents per member per day, the group saves enough over six months to build the first house. At this stage, Habitat and its collaborative partners provide matching funds for the construction of two additional houses. These first 3 houses go to the neediest families in the group chosen by the group itself. At the end of 24 months all families in the group have had their housing needs met. Thirty-month loan payback periods are the norm in this methodology. Save and Build has proved to be an ideal methodology even for families reliant on seasonal work who otherwise would not meet conventional income criteria. Groups elect their own leaders, often women, who manage /monitor members’ savings, decide which families are housed in what order, and provide sweat equity. Repayments are made to the group account and later forwarded to Habitat. The Save and Build approach has enabled Habitat to serve more than 10 times the families it would have served through its conventional model.
ii. Building in Stages/Incremental Building
While Save & Build succeeded in allowing Habitat to reach out to a poorer segment of society not served by its traditional model, this approach still excluded a large segment of the population that was too poor to save even US 16 cents a day. Habitat’s Incremental Building approach or Building in Stages provided a way out.
How does it work?
In this approach, the family is initially assisted in coming to a decision as to which part of the house is the first priority for them to move towards better housing conditions,
without the loan being a burden to them. In Vietnam, for example, the families are assisted in water and sanitation solutions or home improvement first and the journey starts from there towards a complete house. In Nepal, in the Lankathari Village Development Council (VDC) where the community consists of very backward and low caste “untouchables”, the first improvement is limited to a good roof and pillars to hold the roof.
iii. Housing Microfinance
Learning from the experiences gained through the Save & Build and Building in Stages approaches, Habitat for Humanity decided to partner with Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) who already had a history of forming and managing savings and credit groups. These MFIs had huge membership but had hitherto never looked at including housing in their portfolio. The result has been that Habitat for Humanity has managed to reach out to many more families without having to invest in the group formation and management process which was never its core competence but was so for the MFIs. Through this, the poor have truly taken a leading and active role in the program. For example among the families served through this approach in Nepal, not only have the most neglected amongst them been catered to, but 62% of the investment for the housing has come from the very same members of the community.
Microfinance offers much better repayment terms than do informal sources of money lending (loan sharks) and such a loan (MF) can be a supplement or an alternative to saving toward shelter improvement. Our experience has gone to demonstrate the truth of a fundamental expectation of microfinance that “…economically active poor people can finance their housing needs incrementally, affordably, and under conditions that allow the financial provider to cover all associated costs.” (Daphnis & Ferguson, p 1)
The impact on sustainability is seen when we make a comparison of the program in Sri Lanka and in Nepal (Table 1 & 2). Our discovery supports what Ferguson explains in the following “…the home is the most important asset poor people ever own. Sometimes it can be a productive asset, for instance in the case of home-based micro-entrepreneurs. Even in the cases where the home is not systematically used as a place of business, microfinance institutions have long observed that clients use loan proceeds to improve their living conditions. … (Therefore) … such a loan can be a supplement or alternative to saving toward habitat improvements. This suggests a fundamental expectation of A typical ‘Building in Stages’ approach
136 New Architecture and Urbanism: Development of Indian Traditions micro finance– that economically active poor people can finance their needs incrementally, affordably” (Daphnis & Ferguson, p 3)
iv. Use of Appropriate Technology
In recent times, Habitat has exceedingly explored the approach of using local materials and employing traditional building approaches. As much as this has been due to the ever-present necessity of lowering the house cost, this decision has also been influenced to a great deal by the demands of the community itself.
Bamboo Housing
For example, Habitat Nepal has switched from the traditional brick and cement block houses to building mostly bamboo houses. In Nepal, the indigenous bamboo is suitable for building houses because it is easy to use, environmentally friendly and durable. The rural community can also turn to growing and harvesting bamboo as an income generating activity. Moreover, Habitat provides value addition by teaching the community to treat bamboo properly and, on occasion, plaster it with cement or clay, causing these houses to last longer.
HFH Nepal employs bamboo technology by using woven bamboo strips plastered with cement or clay for the walls of a house. Six bamboo pillars support the roof and the walls, providing added resistance to earthquakes. Building earthquake-resistant houses is vital as Nepal lies in a seismically active zone, and major earthquakes in 1934 and 1988 caused thousands of deaths and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Since the bamboo is treated to prevent termite or other insect attacks, the bamboo pillars and walls can last for a good 30 years.
The pictures above show two models of the bamboo houses built by Habitat for Humanity in Nepal as well as the bamboo treatment training provided to a group of architects visiting the program.
In places where bamboo is not available, sun burnt clay bricks are used and these are made by the community. In
Prior to Save and Build With Save and Build
# of families served with every $1000 (In 2002) 1 32
# of houses constructed in 5 years (Up to 2005) 962 4000
External Investment (US$) (Up to 2005) 962,000 800,000
Habitat Nepal, within the first year of operation, was able to reach 630 families through this model as against 870 in eight years under the conventional method.
1997 -2005 2005-2006
# of families served 870 630
External Investment (US $) 1,740,000 198,702 (38%)
With every $ 1000 within 10 years Families served– Sri Lanka (statistics from 1997 to 2005)
Bamboo house in Nepal with concrete pillars and plastered with cement
Bamboo house with bamboo pillars
cases where home partners do not have enough land to make bricks, other members often offer any surplus land to do so. The Construction Committees formed by the members of the MFIs or Village Banks, together with HFHI, provide support in drawing up estimates and also delivering materials to the site. The Committee buys the material in bulk, reducing the cost of material and transport and further easing the burden on the poor.
Table 1
Sustainable Places and Communities 137 structural design. It is volunteer-friendly and cost-efficient with a typical unit costing Philippine Pesos 50,000-55,000 (US$1,000).
Other characteristics of the methodology:
• Uses Galvanized Aluminum for the frames and roofing offering rust and heat protection
• Used extensively for both commercial and residential use
• A Row of 8 Units can be built in 15 days with minimum paid skilled labor