MAKAZI BORA, the small housing microfinance program with which I currently work, just registered its 1,00th Client (646 loans disbursed – currently 507 active clients). We have had our struggles over the last 20 months since the MAKAZI BORA pilot opened its doors, but the product seems to have high demand and sells itself. (We have done very little promotion and no community sensitisation.)
Recently I have been working on some brief refresher sessions for staff on the topic of The Foundations of MAKAZI BORA. The sessions reflect concepts I have discussed in this blog, which form some of the theory that guides our approach to housing microfinance and the design of the MAKAZI BORA product. The first of these “Foundations of MAKAZI BORA” is an oldie but goody from John Turner’s Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building Environment. Turner wrote Housing By People and Freedom to Build before the development of microfinance and long before housing microfinance began to emerge. I am more convinced than ever that his thought, as summarized by Collin Ward in Turner’s Three Laws of Housing, is fully complementary to housing microfinance products and services, if not essential.
I have written on Turner's 3 Laws of Housing before, but I never tire of them because (as any good law should) they continue to ring true over the years and through a variety of housing experiences:
1. Turner’s First Law of Housing: When dwellers are in control of their housing process it is a better process both for the individual and the overall housing environment.
2. Turner’s Second Law of Housing: The value of a house is not in what it is, but in what it does for the household. The value is not necessarily related to imposed standards.
3. Turner’s Third Law of Housing: “Deficiencies and imperfections in your housing are infinitely more tolerable if they are your responsibility than if they are somebody else‟s.” (1)
Housing is a funny thing in that very good microfinance institutions can be tempted to develop housing microfinance products that do not adhere to the principles of microfinance and housing institutions can follow assumptions that lead them to design housing microfinance support services that, in practice, work contrary to Turner’s Three Laws. I will continue to argue that it will be difficult to develop a successful housing microfinance product targeting low income households in Sub-Saharan Africa that does not align with Turner's Three Laws. Perhaps that will change as the overall finance and housing environments develop and change, but the short to medium term reality, I believe, will reward housing microfinance products that give clients the most freedom to build.
(1) Turner, J.F.C. (1976) Housing by People: Towards autonomy in building environments, London: Marion Bayers, p.51
