Why slum eviction drives are not effective

Slum dwellers in Dhaka pay more per square foot than your average middle-income house in Dhanmondi, Banani or elsewhere in the city. In turn, it is profitable to rent out space to slums. 

Many years ago, urban planner and architect Mobasher Hossain, carried out an experiment in Gopibagh to see if this was in fact true. 

"We had a 2 bigha land where 1 bigha was vacant. We decided to build a 'housing' [with approximately 10 beds] on that land. No concrete floor [but with] tin roof, bamboo walls, beds and with facilities like regular water and open space," Hossain told The Business Standard, who would eventually see how a bed was shared by two people in shifts. "The same space was rented by a night guard - who stayed during the day and a physics masters student who stayed at night. The night guard leased out his bed to the student to reduce his own expenses." Hossain spent about Tk30,000 for the experiment, which started to generate a Tk25,000 monthly income. 

Dhaka's slum population, which houses primarily the urban poor working population and internally displaced climate refugees, has been on the rise for decades now. 

According to a Centre of Urban Studies study, there has been a tremendous expansion in the number of slums and populations living in them. In 1996, CUS found 3,007 slums in Dhaka with 1.1 million people (36% of the population at the time) living in them. A simple comparison of the 1996 and 2005 results thus suggest that the total population living in the slums of Dhaka essentially tripled, while the number of slum communities increased by roughly 70%. 

And remains under a constant threat of eviction drives from the authorities. 

In July this year, the preliminary Population and Housing Census 2022 report was released which stated that about 8.84 lakh slum dwellers live in Dhaka. However, urban planners say that actual figures far exceed official estimates.

So with a rising city population, how can we address the rising slum population? According to three experts, it is imperative to first look at why the city's slum population continues to rise and the failure to pay attention to this disadvantaged population by providing them with better housing alternatives. 

One of the primary reasons for people to move to the capital is to look for employment and due to the poor state of inter-city public transport, people are bound to move and settle in the cities for work.

Hossain explained further how his experiment also reflected the desperation of people to look for a space, any space, to spend the night while they work or study in the city.  If all facilities are centred in Dhaka, people will continue to move here at warp speed. 

"Kolkata is an exemplary city. They have designed and worked out a way for their working population to come into the city, work and leave after office hours. In fact, Kolkata's day population size is twice as much as its night population size. Why? Because people can avail efficient public transport system to sustain such a life," said Hossain. 

Solutions lie in improved public transport that will enable long commutes for employees who live outside Dhaka and, finally, decentralisation. Solutions also lie in rehabilitation projects. The failure of the Bhasantek Rehabilitation Project (BRP) - a large-scale project to provide housing to the urban poor working population - is a case in point of an ineffective rehabilitation project. 

Experts say that the failure is based on a corrupt, bureaucracy-riddled system. And that there hasn't been any real initiative of that scale undertaken within Dhaka.

So when the slum evictions take place, more often than not, we are left with a "rootless, hopeless" segment of slum dwellers, who roam to either move into other slum establishments in the city or re-build what had been bulldozed during the eviction drives. A perpetual vicious cycle, one which the urban poor working population of our capital cannot seem to escape.

The makings of a vicious cycle 

There are essentially three parties involved in slum establishments in the city - the government, the private land owners and the slum dwellers. Lack of documents, such as leases or agreements, is another point of vulnerability for the city's slum dwellers, said architect and urban planner Iqbal Habib. Once they are evicted, regardless of how brief their homelessness state, it takes a toll. "They feel hopeless, rootless," explained Habib, adding, "Small pieces of land owned by the area's influential individuals can earn a profit at low cost if and when they rent out their space to slums," said Habib. 

Slum eviction drives work as mere band-aids to blood-gushing wounds. And a closer look at the whole picture is a telling answer as to why 'slums' continue to exist. One straightforward answer is, perhaps, profits. 

Slum dwellers pay more in rent than your average middle-income household

In cases of establishments on privately owned land (which we understand as slums), owners (or landlords) charge a steep rent. And they take on the initiative to improve these establishments. 

"One room in a slum can cost as high as Tk4,000 monthly - and this we have found from surveys we carried out. So this 'room' or 'one unit' is usually 100 to 120 square feet of space and comes with a shared bathroom and kitchen.

For middle-income households renting in places like Kalabagan or elsewhere, they don't pay as much per square foot. We have found from our work on the ground and what has been published, those who live in slums or squatters, pay much more than tenants in middle-income households or higher-income groups," explained Professor Nazrul Islam, professor at Dhaka University, president of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and Chairman of the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS).

In unison, urban planner and architect Iqbal Habib said, "slum dwellers and squatters pay much more - excessive rent - per square feet than those who live in Dhanmondi, Banani. For instance, they pay Tk44 per sq ft, whereas the cost is Tk26-30 per sq ft in Dhanmondi." 

What happened in the last decades and rehabilitation projects 

In the last 15-20 years, there are numerous examples (such as in Mirpur, Kallayanpur, etc) where 'housing' (slums or squatters) have improved out of the landlords' volition. In particular, in places where the land is privately owned. Prior to this period, the majority of housing in these establishments was makeshift, now many are semi-concrete or fully concrete. 

Additionally, when we say 'slums' - it essentially means housing on privately owned land. And when we say 'squatters' - it essentially means housing on government land or on land owned by some other organisation, but by 'illegal' occupation. 

"The number of 'squatters' has decreased over time due to the frequency of eviction drives. This we have seen in a lot of places like Agargaon. There are still some squatters by the rail line and the state of affairs or standard of living did not improve much for them. Squatters are subjected to eviction and a stagnant condition of life," said Professor Islam.

So the decrease in the number of squatters is a good sign? Not really, replied Professor Nazrul Islam. The government did not take up rehabilitation programmes. The 'evicted' population have not been rehabilitated. They went to other slums or squatters to find shelter. 

"In the past, the government took up rehabilitation projects in 1974 under Bangabandhu. Later, Ershad did it in places like Islampur, Dattapara, etc" said Professor Nazrul, adding, ever since, the government resorted to evictions, not rehabilitation projects. And thus "slum population increased, although the number of squatters decreased." 

Eviction without rehabilitation is futile

What about the Bhasantek project? Was the rehabilitation project effective? "It was first started by the land ministry. However, later, victims [existing city slum dwellers or squatters] were replaced," said Iqbal Habib, "by families who do not belong to this category. And due to increased demand, square feet of the units started to expand." 

There are benefits, the architect said, but it could not replace slums in the city. 

Government rehabilitation projects inside Dhaka did not pan out, in fact, it was not even successfully pursued in the last several decades. "But outside Dhaka, such as in Cox's Bazar, it was tried," said Habib, adding "there was an [rehabilitation] initiative in Rayebazar. But what it lacked was involving the slum dwellers in the planning process. When they were asked to pay rent in addition to other costs, they realised it would exceed their current expenses. So the whole initiative failed."

So what holds back rehabilitation programmes for the city's slum populations? 

The problem is three-fold, said Habib. 1) The delivery of housing units, supply of housing units, DAP and other urban planning projects which blatantly leave out the slum population. 2) Accept that they [slum population] are here to stay in Dhaka, and will not leave or return. 3) If the first two criteria are fulfilled, only then solutions in terms of planning and initiative or private-public partnerships can work. 

"I don't have an answer to why the first two remain unfulfilled or don't work out. The answer to this is politics," said Habib, "Because there is probably one philosophy that influences decisions that the poor people who are coming to Dhaka have to return. Go back home, where they come from."

"But we, who work with urban city planning, understand that planning is possible to ensure registered housing for everyone or include registered housing in planning – and by doing so, we can keep the city alive," said Habib, "but why we are failing to do so, that, I don't have an answer for." 

Did the slum population increase? "Definitely, yes it did. Three out of seven people who migrate to the city from rural Bangladesh join [or add to the] slum/squatters population. Perhaps they do not stay permanently, but the overall trend is a rising population," said Habib, who cites inflation, lack of employment opportunities and climate-change-induced displacement as the underlying reasons. 

So even before decentralisation (a longer-term plan), there are viable scopes to take on shorter-term plans such as the making of public transport to enable the commute of out-of-towners into and out of Dhaka city. 

All these are possible but have not happened because of a lack of planning and vision by the powers that be, said the experts. The DAP plan announced in August lacks any discourse on slum dwellers, said Habib.