There are at least two very different approaches to incrementalism within housing and housing microfinance. The approach I advocated in my previous posting was to design housing microfinance products that support existing, dweller-controlled incremental building efforts. In this approach, clients are already building incrementally according to their own house designs and process. Another approach, however, is to provide clients with an incremental building design and process. I will call this “provider controlled incrementalism” and personally see it as a second-best option that has numerous drawbacks. This prescribed building in stages may, however, meet some specific housing needs and have a niche market in some areas. The challenge will be whether it can be sustainable.
In my 8th August posting on Housing Paradigms and Housing Microfinance, I mentioned that one difference between the Provider and Supporter Paradigms of housing, as described by Nabeel Hamdi in Housing Without Houses: participation, flexibility and enablement, is that providers tend to seek “instant housing” in the form of units that are completed to a given standard, while supporters tend to be more comfortable with incremental processes. The challenge for providers then becomes making “instant housing” affordable for low income households. Where heavy subsidization is not an option, providers may tend to appropriate the incremental building concept and develop incremental building designs. These building in stages designs are usually small units built to a given standard that can be extended at a later date using subsequent loans. Clients building under this method will use a provider’s design and fit into an incremental process as defined by the provider. Providers and supporters may use similar language and acknowledge that incremental building is common among the poor, but supporters are more likely to “go with the flow” of how households are already building while institutions leaning more towards the provider paradigm are likely to control (or attempt to control) a household’s incremental process from start to finish.
Client dissatisfaction over real or perceived problems with a house that is dictated through a forced incremental process can translate into portfolio performance challenges. Although a stated theory is that the desire to extend the house will result good repayment, provider controlled incrementalism can often result in dissatisfaction on the part of the client when the house is considered too small or the client perceives that it is taking too long to move on to the next stage of the design. When the provider controls a significant portion of the housing process, it runs counter to Turner’s Third law of housing which states that “deficiencies and imperfections in your housing are infinitely more tolerable if they are your responsibility than if they are somebody else’s”[1] (posting see Turner’s 3 Laws and Housing Microfinance, 25th July).
Stage one of a building in stages design that was deemed affordable, but was highly unpopular. It was discontinued by popular demand.
If the house in a provider controlled incremental building scheme is perceived as too small, it can also result in low demand. Strangely, (or not so strangely depending on your viewpoint), some households would rather spend their money on a larger house built to their design, even if it is made with inferior materials or is incomplete in comparison to a smaller but complete unit. Between the cost of delivery and control of provider controlled incremental building models and the potential for low demand from the target group, there are challenges to sustainable housing microfinance using this method.
Another type of provider controlled Incrementalism has clients start building at foundation level. After paying off a foundation loan, a subsequent loan might be taken for walls and later a roof, etc. Again, client dissatisfaction is not uncommon in such schemes, especially in the early stages if the client perceives that they are paying for a piece of a house that they are unable to occupy. The key here is perception. I have experienced clients with complaints about this method, when many households collect blocks and/or remain only at foundation level for even longer periods of time without complaint when they are in control of their own housing process. It all goes back to Turner’s 3rd Law, which I have come to accept as a reality in housing.
There may be cases in which a prescribed building in stages model is effective or perhaps even appropriate. It can be used in housing projects in which the provider is also providing land as part of the package. Tapping into existing incremental building requires that the households have already somehow acquired land on which they are building. Because land availability and land markets are often a serious impediment to low income households in urban and peri-urban areas, building in stages housing schemes that involve land as part of the process may be aimed serving clients without land access. Such an intervention is still likely to experience the challenges of provider controlled incrementalism, but this use aligns easily with projects that undertake green field development. An alternative option to the problem would be land access as a loan or savings product, which might be followed by support of dweller-controlled incremental building at a later time.
Another niche market for building in stages designs may be households that do not have the skills, desire or confidence to control their own housing process. In one program with which I have worked, there seemed to be anecdotal evidence that women headed households were more likely to show interest in building-in-stages type designs. There may be cases in which forced Incrementalism meets a housing need in sufficient scale to make it sustainable. I have yet to see this in Sub-Saharan Africa, but am willing to assume that it could be possible. If someone knows of provider controlled incremental housing processes in Africa that are currently reaching significant scale and are sustainable, please write in and let us know about it. Housing microfinance is still essentially in a pioneering stage in Sub-Saharan Africa, but at this point I personally believe that fitting housing microfinance into existing incremental building will be more effective and have more impact than using a controlled incremental process as a vehicle for housing microfinance.
HMF Hypothesis Four: Provider Controlled Incrementalism holds inherent challenges that will make it difficult to reach scale and sustainability as a housing microfinance option in Sub-Saharan Africa.
[1] Turner, J.F.C. (1976). Housing by People: Towards autonomy in building environments. NY: Marian Boyars. 6.
Another type of provider controlled Incrementalism has clients start building at foundation level. After paying off a foundation loan, a subsequent loan might be taken for walls and later a roof, etc. Again, client dissatisfaction is not uncommon in such schemes, especially in the early stages if the client perceives that they are paying for a piece of a house that they are unable to occupy. The key here is perception. I have experienced clients with complaints about this method, when many households collect blocks and/or remain only at foundation level for even longer periods of time without complaint when they are in control of their own housing process. It all goes back to Turner’s 3rd Law, which I have come to accept as a reality in housing.
There may be cases in which a prescribed building in stages model is effective or perhaps even appropriate. It can be used in housing projects in which the provider is also providing land as part of the package. Tapping into existing incremental building requires that the households have already somehow acquired land on which they are building. Because land availability and land markets are often a serious impediment to low income households in urban and peri-urban areas, building in stages housing schemes that involve land as part of the process may be aimed serving clients without land access. Such an intervention is still likely to experience the challenges of provider controlled incrementalism, but this use aligns easily with projects that undertake green field development. An alternative option to the problem would be land access as a loan or savings product, which might be followed by support of dweller-controlled incremental building at a later time.
Another niche market for building in stages designs may be households that do not have the skills, desire or confidence to control their own housing process. In one program with which I have worked, there seemed to be anecdotal evidence that women headed households were more likely to show interest in building-in-stages type designs. There may be cases in which forced Incrementalism meets a housing need in sufficient scale to make it sustainable. I have yet to see this in Sub-Saharan Africa, but am willing to assume that it could be possible. If someone knows of provider controlled incremental housing processes in Africa that are currently reaching significant scale and are sustainable, please write in and let us know about it. Housing microfinance is still essentially in a pioneering stage in Sub-Saharan Africa, but at this point I personally believe that fitting housing microfinance into existing incremental building will be more effective and have more impact than using a controlled incremental process as a vehicle for housing microfinance.
HMF Hypothesis Four: Provider Controlled Incrementalism holds inherent challenges that will make it difficult to reach scale and sustainability as a housing microfinance option in Sub-Saharan Africa.
[1] Turner, J.F.C. (1976). Housing by People: Towards autonomy in building environments. NY: Marian Boyars. 6.
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