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Community Participation in Lowincome Housing Projects: problems

and prospects
Yap Kioe Sheng

Introduction
Whenever low-income housing projects fail to produce the desired result, the
failure is attributed to a lack of community participation. When governments do
not have the funds to launch a low-income housing programme, community
participation is supposed to compensate for this lack of resources.
There exists a considerable confusion about the exact meaning of the term
"community participation". All sorts of activities (ranging from house construction to discussions about loan repayment schedules) by groups of people as well as
by individual persons are classed under the term. This article attempts to clarify
the term "community participation" with reference to urban low-income housing
projects.
In squatter settlement upgrading projects, the authorities regularize the
illegal land tenure of squatters and provide basic infrastructure in the settlements. These interventions are expected to be sufficient incentives for the
residents to start improving their houses. In sites-and-services schemes, the
authorities provide serviced plots to the urban poor and expect them to produce
their own houses, through individual or mutual self-help or the employment of
small contractors.

Defining Community Participation


Sociologically, "community" is defined as a group of people with face-to-face
contact, a sense of belonging together and common interests and values. In the
context of urban low-income housing, people who are living in a delimited area,
identify with that area and share an interest in its development, form a
community. So, in squatter settlements, communities do already exist, while in
sites-and-services schemes they have to be developed.
Participation assumes an activity in which the community takes part and the
involvement of at least one other party, usually a government agency or a nongovernmental organization (NGO). There seems a tacit assumption that the other
party is the initiator of the activity. Even if the community initiates the activity
and the government comes to assist the community, one does not speak of
government (public?) participation but of community participation.
Community participation refers to involvement by communities as a whole as
well as by its individual members. In the latter case, "popular participation" or
"people's participation" seem more accurate terms, but do n.ot have the positive
connotation of "community".
Community participation is sometimes used to indicate community selfreliance or self-help, i.e. an activity which is usually undertaken by a government
agency, is undertaken by the community on its own (e.g. spontaneous housing).

57 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN LOW-INCOME HOUSING PROJECTS

However, in urban housing projects, self-reliance is not really feasible as legal land
tenure and the provision of infrastructure requires government involvement
Some decades ago, the term "community development" was in vogue, but it
seems, at least in urban areas, hardly to be used any more. The United Nations
defined community development as "the processes by which the efforts of the
people themselves are united with those of governmental authorities to improve
the economic, social and cultural conditions of communities, to integrate these
communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to
national progress." In this respect, community development has two essential
elements:
-

the participation by the people in efforts to improve their level of living with as
much self-reliance as possible on their own initiatives;
the provision of technical and other services in ways which encourage
initiative, self-help and mutual help and makes these more effective (UNDESA, 1977, p. 2).

Clinard defined urban community development as "the collective initiative of


families living in the same neighbourhood and support for these efforts through
services rendered by a higher level of government", in order to develop a
community feeling, a self-help capability, indigenous leadership and co-operation
between people and government in the use of services (Clinard, 1970, p. 125). One
must conclude that commumty development and community participation are
basically the same; community development has gone out of fashion and has been
re-invented as community participation. The erstwhile prevailing belief that
purely technological interventions can improve housing conditions may well have
caused the decline of urban community development Community development
became associated with "soft" interventions like women's groups and day-care
centres, and was dissociated from "hardware" projects like housing and infrastructure improvement.

Participation
If we accept the common usage of the term community participation as being
the participation by a community as well as its individual members, we can ask
ourselves the question: participation in what? This article deals with community
participation in urban low-income housing projects, but that merely provides the
framework in which participation takes place.
Sometimes, community participation is identified with (mutual) self-help
construction of houses, i.e. the construction of houses by (groups of) families.
However, self-help construction is a much narrower concept than commumty
participation; it is often restricted to the provision of unskilled labour for which
payment is received in kind (sweat equity). If people are expected to provide
labour (and money) for the construction of their houses, they must also have a say
in the planning and design of their houses and the neighbourhood. Community
participation is the involvement of the community in planning and decisionmaking rather than in merely contributing labour (and/or money). Paul defines
community participation as "an active process by which beneficiary/client groups
influence the direction and execution of a development project with a view to
enhancing their well-being in terms of income, personal growth, self-reliance or
other values they cherish." (Paul, 1987, p. 2).
If people participate in planning and decision-making with regard to their
house and its direct environment, they can also decide if and if so, how much they

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 25 NO. 1 1989

can and want to contribute to the project in terms of labour and money, and what
they expect to receive for their contribution. Once people have been involved in
the planning and decision-making for their houses and their neighbourhood, they
are more likely to be interested in the maintenance and management of their
neighbourhood, its infrastructure and services.
Consequently, the central element of community participation is participation
by the community in decisions which directly affect their living conditions. This
implies the sharing of power between the authorities and the community. Four
arguments have been advanced to explain the need for community participation
(UNCHS, 1983, p. 6).
a. Community participation is a right People have a right to participate in
decision-making which directly affects their living conditions. Community
participation is a form of grassroots democracy.
b. Community participation is a right, but participation in housing projects is
not the most important form of participation. It must be extended to all
spheres of life and must include the sharing of benefits of development.
Participation in housing is a learning process whereby the urban poor become
aware of their situation, build up self-confidence and understand their power
if they act in a concerted manner (Fernandez-White, 1983, pp. 25-26; Setty,
1985, p. 76).
c Community participation is a means to achieve better project results and
consequently better housing conditions for the community. Since people
themselves know best what they need, what they want and what they can
afford, only close cooperation between authorities and community can result
in projects which satisfy both the community and the authorities. The
objective of community participation is project effectiveness (Paul, op. tit,
P- 3).
d. Community participation is a means to facilitate project execution. If the
authorities prepare the community for the project and educate the people
about its means and objectives, the community will more easily comply with
the project and this will facilitate its implementation. The objective of
community participation is project efficiency (Ibid., p. 4).

Modes of Participating
In her article "A Ladder of Citizen Participation", Arnstein distinguished eight
forms of participation (Amstein, 1969, p. 217):

a. citizen control

b. delegated power | degrees of citizen po


c. partnership
1
d. placation
1
c. consultation
| degrees of tokenism
f. informing
1
g- therapy
I
h. manipulation
1 non-participation
The weakness of Arnstein's classification is the inconsistency of the criteria to
distinguish forms of participation. There is no difference in the locus of power
between placation, consultation, informing, manipulation and therapy, power
remains in the hands of the authorities. These five forms of pariticipation merely
describe techniques employed by authorities to deal with the community.
Mary RaceUs Hollnsteiner distinguished six modes of participation. The locus

39 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN LOW-INCOME HOUS1NO PROJECTS

of power is the classifier power is either with the people or the planners or is
shared by the two parties (Racelis, 1977, pp. 24-25):
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

People have a majority representation on the decision-making board;


People have a minority representation on the board;
Planners consult the people from the beginning of plan formulation;
- Authorities invite local leaders to work with the planners;
Planners consult the people after formulation of the plans;
Local leaders are appointed by the authorities to lead the people.

The four arguments used to advocate community participation in projects allow


us to refine this classification using two criteria, which provides us in turn with
four key concepts. The criteria are:
-

the locus of power,


the relationship between the parties: even without power-sharing, the authorities can accept the community as a resourceful partner in the project or can see
it rather as an object or even an obstacle in project execution.
Locus of power
Power sharing

No power sharing

Yes

Participation

Co-operation

No

Education

Manipulation

Partnership

The concepts are defined as follows.


Participation .
- citizens control: the community holds the decision-making power,
- delegated power the authorities delegate responsibilities to the community
within limits set by the authorities;
- community representation: community representatives form a majority or a
minority on the decision-making board, or community and authorities have
equal representations; all members have the same rights and responsibilities.
Cojbperation
- consultation (ex-post facto or continuous): the authorities consult the community about their plans, but the authorities take the decisions;
- communication: the authorities extend information to the community about
the project and require information (including opinions) from the community;
decision-making power is with the authorities.
Education
- the purpose of participation is to gradually grant (!) power to the community
as it learns how to use it; the community considers its participation in the
project a right, but the organizers see it rather as a learning process for the
community; the community is controlled, if not manipulated, by the community organizers.
Manipulation
- therapy: the authorities consider the community maladjusted to the project
requirements and try to align the community's opinions with their own views
"for the community's own good';
- token representation: community representatives are included in the decision-

60 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 25 NO. I 1989

making board (as a minority or majority), but are not considered equal to the
other members who retain the real power,
Only the first category is participation according to our definition. However,
through consultation a community can influence the direction of a project, while
communication and education can make it aware of its situation. If authorities do
not allow the community to participate in the decision-making and the community becomes aware that it is being ignored or manipulated, it may bypass the
project authorities and influence decision-making through politicians or bureaucrats at higher levels, with fatal results for the project.
The authorities may agree that a community must participate in project
decision-making, but practical forms of participation are not easy to devise. There
are no universally applicable guidelines for community participation in project
decision-making. The way a community participates depends on its socio-cultural
background, the political situation in the country and the design of the project
(Yap, 1987b, p. 80).
Moreover, the authorities may be willing to share decision-making powers
with community, but this is usually not enough to achieve community participation in decision-making. The community and the authorities are often internally
divided, with factions having different interests and degrees of power.

Urban Low-income Communities


Most communities are too large to participate as a whole in decision-making,
unless the settlement is divided into smaller units (but this may easily lead to a
divide-and-rule situation). Moreover, a plan for the entire settlement must also be
prepared and discussed with the community. A community organization is,
therefore, needed with leaders to represent the community in the negotiations with
the authorities.
Community Organization
Squatters may have organized themselves in the face of eviction or in order to
pressure the government for infrastructure or security of tenure. The Zone One
Tondo Organization (ZOTO) in Manila is an example of such an organization
(Fernandez-White, 1983, p. 17). In some countries, the structure of the government (Indonesia) or the ruling party (Zambia) extends down to neighbourhood
level providing a form of community organization.
Many governments have tried to organize the urban poor into community
organizations (UNDESA, 1971, p. 7) such as the community development
councils in Sri Lanka (Cassim et al., 1982, p. 162) and India (Clinard, 1970,
pp. 166-167). Many of these are, however, defunct or inactive, because they
lacked the capacity and the leadership to organize and carry out activities or
because the authorities did not give them by responsibilities.
If a neighbourhood does not have a community organization, one must ask
why this is so. The population may not be interested, because it consists mainly of
tenants or seasonal migrants to the city who do not feel committed to the
neighbourhood. The population may be divided into small ethnic, religious or
political groups and be unable to establish an overall neighbourhood organization
(Anzorena, 1980, p. 187).
If a community organization does into exist, it will have to be established, but
who can do this? Public housing agencies usually employ planners, architects,
engineers and economists who do not have the skills to organize communities.

61 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN LOW-INCOME HOU3INO PROJECTS

Social welfare departments employ social workers and community organizers, but
these lack the technical knowledge to assist communities in housing projects.
Moreover, cooperation between ministries is usually difficult.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are better staffed to do this work.
They are moreflexibleas they are not restricted in their activities to a particular
field of work like the mono-sectoral government agencies (Paul, 1987, p. 26;
Anzorena, 1980, p. 193). However, organizing the urban poor clearly has political
undertones. Many governments may not like the idea and see it as a subversive
activity. An NGO can only perform this function if it has a good relationship with
the public agency involved (Yap, 1987a, p. 3).
The existence of an organization does not guarantee that it represents the
entire community. The organization may be closely linked to the government or
the ruling party, and the population may not feel free to express its opinions. The
organization may represent certain (categories of) residents and exclude others.
House owners whose property (and its value) may be directly affected by the
project will be more motivated to participate in the organization than tenants who
are only temporary residents in the neighbourhood. Men tend to be overrepresented in such organizations although infrastructure and house improvements are more likely to affect the lives of the women.
Leadership

Community organizations need leaders, but in most urban low-income communities, the only persons who can afford to be active in a community organization are
the richer among the poor businessmen, shopkeepers, landlords who do not have
to worry all day about how to earn an income. Consequently, community leaders
are often not representative of the population but rather represent particular
interest groups (Anzorena, 1980, p. 187). Like organizations, leaders may compete
for followers in a community and refuse to work together for the neighbourhood.
To be effective, community leaders need training in such technical and social
skills as organizing communities, electing leadership, conducting meetings, understanding and explaining technical issues, decision-making, conflict resolution,
communication and financial management Here again NGOs are better
equipped and staffed than government agencies for this kind of work (Yap, 1987a,
p. 3).
Information
Participation in decision-making is only possible, if communication is established
between authorities and community so that the authorities receive information,
ideas and opinions from the community and the community has access to
information about the issues at stake. Community leaders can establish such
communication. However, the existence of an organization and community
leaders does not guarantee the sharing of information (Paul, op. cat., p. 26).
Information is a valuable good and can be monopolized by community leaders
and sold to their clients in exchange for votes or other services (Anzorena, op. a t ,
p. 187).
The contents and the form-of communication have to be adjusted to the
conditions of the population. This requires considerable skills of project support
communication (Perrett, 1982, p. 9). The following questions must be asked;
-

does the information reach the entire community and in the correct form?
does the community understand the information?
can the community take a decision on the basis of this information?
does the decision reflect the opinion of at least the majority of the population?

62 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 25 NO. 1 1989

do the community opinions and decisions reach the authorities and in the
correct form?

Besides participation of community leaders in project decision-making, there is a


need for participation by community members in community decision-making.
The various forms of real and token participation listed earlier also apply to the
relationship between local leaders and the community at large. Project authorities
who want to see "real" community participation on both levels, need to open two
or more information channels to the population, one through the local leaders,
another directly to the community in the form of leaflets, public announcements,
mass meetings etc. This will provide a check on the information distributed by the
local leaders.

Project Organization
Many participants in a project oppose community participation for their own
reasons.
Most authorities are reluctant to give power to people, as they fear that the
people may become too demanding and will start making demands in other fields
than housing. They see community organization and participation as a Pandora's
box. The authorities will try to restrict community participation to simple
decisions such as the location of a bus stop or a street light and the opening hours
of the clinic (Paul, op. cit, p. 25).
Politicians believe that they should represent communities as they have been
elected by popular vote and that there is no need for a community organization
and leadership outside parliament or the municipal council. Politicians may also
fear that grassroots leaders become their rivals in the next local or national
elections. It is important not to antagonize politicians and to respect their position
as overall political decision-makers. However, they have to be made aware that
planning and decision-making in the context of a housing project require the
direct involvement of the community (Boaden, 1980, pp. 39-41).
Technocrats believe that only they can take decisions on technical issues, as it
requires many years of study to be able to prepare plans for infrastructure, housing
etc. They consider it almost a personal insult to go to an illiterate, ignorant
community and ask for its opinion and advice. They often dearly show this when
Hwiling with communities. Their attitude is therapeutic or manipulative (in
Amstein's words) rather than participatory; or it is paternalistic and authoritarian.
Those responsible for project finances fear that community participation will
cost time and, therefore, money. Because one is dealing with people, a time
schedule for community participation is difficult to establish beforehand and the
outcome may eventually not be too different from what could have been expected.
However, the project authorities have to realize that, for instance, cost recovery is
almost impossible without prior community participation in planning and
decision-making.
Those who are in favour of and responsible for community participation often
do not know how to organize a community for participation in twhniml projects
such as squatter settlement upgrading and sites-and-services schemes (Anzorena,
op. cit., p. 190; Paul, op. cit., p. 13). Concrete modes of participation often need to
be developed within the context of a particular project as it is impossible to simply
transfer forms of participation from one project to another.
In some projects, the technical staff deals directly with the community. In other
projects, because of the lack of social skills among the technical staff, the contact
between the community and the staff is channelled through community relations

63 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN LOW-INCOME HOUSING PROJECTS

officers. They have to translate the messages of the technical staff into a language
understandable by the community and to translate the decisions of the community
into langauge understandable by the technical staff.
Although part of the project staff, community relations officers may identify
themselves with the community rather than with their colleagues and find
themselves in a rather awkward position in the project Their task is to organize
the community and to encourage it to participate in decision-making. The better
they perform this task, the more problems the technical staff will face trying to
meet community demands and technical requirements.

Scope for Participation


The decisions (and activities) in which a community can participate in a lowincome housing project are obviously numerous. In a squatter settlement upgrading project, decisions have to be made with regard to the priorities for improvement (types and levels of infrastructure and services to be provided), the (repayment) schedules, the rcblocldng and regularization plans, community inputs in
the form of labour etc. In sites-and-services schemes, communities and building
groups can decide on the house plans, the neighbourhood layout, loan repayment
schedules, the management of infrastructure etc.
But what is the scope for participation? The authorities can only establish
contact with community organizations and leadership after the project has been
approved and project funds have been allocated; otherwise, such contacts may
raise undue expectations. However, once a project has been approved, many
irreversible decisions have already been taken (Hoek-Smit, 1982, p. 59).
Moreover, how much scope for participation in decision-making can be given
to the community? Authorities have their own responsibilities. The community
may, for instance, give priority to an improvement of the roads, while the
authorities feel that the sanitary conditions in the settlement are an unacceptable
public health hazard. The community will look after its own interests rather than
those of the city as a whole, but the project may also affect other parts of the city.
Government follows a rather sectoral approach to development the housing
agency is responsible for housing, the development authority for the construction
of infrastructure, the municipality for the maintenance of infrastructure, the
ministry of education for schools and the ministry of health for clinics. When
asked for its priorities, a community will list its priorities (income, water supply,
jobs, buses etc.) irrespective of the organization asking the question. As a result,
the community may be rather frustrated when it realizes the agency is prepared to
discuss only one or two of its priorities.
A resident of a squatter area or a sites-and-services scheme will only be
interested in those plans which directly affect his house, his neighbourhood and
the infrastructure and services he is using. However, before detailed plans can be
prepared, major decisions on general principles have to be taken. Many residents
will discover that the general decisions which did not interest them have limited
the choices which they can make in detailed planning
Local leaders may shun the responsibility for participation in decision-making,
if delicate issues are at stake which could lead to a conflict between the leaders and
community members. In upgrading projects, it has to be decided, for instance,
which houses have to be demolished for the construction of a road. Community
leaders may tell the planners the consequences of each of the alternatives, but
leave the final choice to the project staff in order to preserve their relationship with
the. residents (Yap. 1982, p. 90).

64 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL. 2S NO. 1 1989

Such a development may be disappointing from the point of view of the


community organizer who has to fight an uphill battle with his colleagues to
involve the community in decision-making. However, it is important to emphasize
that giving the community a say in decisions implies that the community can also
decline the responsibility to decide, because it feels that it is not in its interest to
participate or perhaps because it does not feel competent to take a decision about
a particular issue. What is more important than the actual participation by the
community is the willingness of the authorities to accept the community as a
partner in development

Conclusions
Without the involvement of the community in planning and decision-making,
a low-income housing project can not meet the needs and demands of the
community for improvement in an. effective and efficient way. As a result, plan
implementation and cost recovery will be difficult to achieve, and this will
jeopardize the rcplicability of the project However, real community participation
is not easy to achieve. It is difficult to organize community participation in
decision-making; there is resistance as well as ignorance among project staff and
there is a lack of participation by the community in the community organisation.
StiH community participation is an indispensable component of any low-income
housing project
Yap Kioe Sheng works at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand.

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