Lonely planet

By Aline Kazandjian
The critical housing problems of an overcrowded urban centre like Cairo can be fraught with contradiction: while slum areas balloon and swallow up hundreds of thousands of homeless families, countless flats remain unoccupied, their owners caught up in the waiting game of real estate profit. Buildings taking up prime locations may never be lived in, but the consequent squeeze on available living space pushes prices out of most people's league.
So as the poor get poorer, the dream of adequate living quarters recedes further and further for most of Cairo's underprivileged working classes. Critics point to the shrinking role being played by the Ministry of Housing in providing low-income housing, remaining sceptical of the relief promised by a new draft law addressing the problem. Between the crossfire of legislative chatter and exalted banner-waving, an embarrassing portion of the population remains locked in the cycle of poverty that chains them to inhumane living conditions.
In the 1980s, the Ministry of Housing embarked on a grand scheme to build new communities on the outskirts of Cairo and relocate residents of impoverished areas into low-income housing provided by the state. The plans were ambitious, but also hasty, failing to take into account the communities they would inevitably break up or the strain it would put on people who could not afford to give up their Cairo jobs. Dramatic building projects were launched, but original time frames for implementing the plan were foiled by the 1992 earthquake, which left thousands homeless and also in need of housing.
Barren desert lands outside Cairo was quickly forested with apartment buildings fittingly named blokat -- literally, "blocks" -- and some 40 per cent of the residents living in the working-class district of Al-Salam, on Cairo's north-eastern outskirts, were given the opportunity to move to one of five so-called satellite cities. The process of relocation proved ill-managed and forced hundreds of people to spend weeks, sometimes months, under tents waiting to be accommodated in the few buildings that were ready on time.
The building complexes that were finally erected leave little room for aesthetics. Despite the area's only asset -- the availability of open space -- six-story buildings are crammed on top of each other and the conspicuous lack of greenery leaves the area feeling dry and desolate. Living conditions have improved nominally over the past decade, but residents still suffer from frequent water cuts, unpaved roads and poor garbage collection. Transportation services, particularly to and from Cairo, continue to lag behind demand. Residents, cut off from the tightly-knit communities they left behind, feel cheated and forgotten.
Samah Ibrahim's family is ostensibly lucky. Their old apartment in Sayeda Zeinab was condemned after it was irreparably damaged by fire. Because of their humble financial situation, the family had no one to turn to but the government. After a nine-year wait, they were promised housing in one of the satellite communities that were being built around the capital, but they weren't given the chance to give any preference as to where.
Eight years later, Samah still vividly recalls the day her father rented a truck to carry the family and its belongings from their run-down apartment to their new government flat in the city of Al-Nahda. "The furniture remained stacked in the apartment for a whole week," she remembers. "None of us wanted to put our things away in the new place. It was in the middle of the desert. There was no running water."
Samah's story is typical of many who have taken the plunge and moved out to far-flung state housing communities like Al-Nahda. What might have been a new start for thousands of Egyptian families took an ugly turn because of the lack of basic infrastructure, bad economic planning and outright insensitivity to the social needs of the people being relocated. Authorities were also overwhelmed by monumental population growth. In Al-Nahda, for example, the population soared from some 4,600 in 1986 to over 52,000 in 1996.
Samah, who is 23 years old, was forced to quit her job in central Cairo because the daily commute was too long and expensive. Today she is one of the few who have been successful in obtaining work at a nearby textile factory. Despite the obvious problems her family has encountered, however, Samah says that what made the move so difficult was leaving their old neighbourhood behind. In many cases, a sense of community and fraternity was what made living in derelict conditions tolerable and now, having been plucked out of this supportive kinship, many residents harbour a deep feeling of resentment.
Over and above the severing of communal ties, the most damaging consequence of insufficient transportation to Cairo has been the loss of jobs. "New residents were forced to leave their jobs in central Cairo because of transportation difficulties, or because it was simply too costly to cover such long distances," explains Amal Mahmoud of the National Centre for Social and Criminological Research. Unemployment, says Mahmoud, is the most devastating problem for relocated residents, and one that has some grave consequences. The vast majority of residents are in their peak working years -- between 20 and 40 years old -- but the lack of job opportunities has led them to depend on illegal sources of income, like drug trafficking. Desperation and a patched together community can also breed mistrust and violence.
It is a problem not only linked to the satellite cities, but poverty in general. Back in Al-Salam, City Council head El-Sayed Mahmoud Hussein says unemployment is his main concern. He notes that despite the number of industrial enterprises around Al-Nahda, "these factories have job opportunities for workers who are better educated -- not unskilled labourers or people who are illiterate."
Official figures indicate that 40 per cent of men and 48 per cent of women in Al-Nahda are illiterate. While schooling is readily available, residents and observers have dismissed the standard of education as inferior. The same is true of health facilities. The lavish marble façade of Al-Salam Public Hospital stands in stark contrast to its drab surroundings, but locals say the fancy exterior masks services described as "very poor."
And yet, when asked what is most difficult about living in Al-Nahda, residents overwhelmingly rank separation from their old neighbours the highest. "No effort was made to regroup families or neighbours," explains Mahmoud. "There was no consideration for social and cultural bonds. You find a doctor is housed next to an illiterate merchant."
Hussein agrees: "Because the people who make up these new cities come from different places and different social and cultural backgrounds, there is an atmosphere of antagonism." The result is frequent and violent neighbourhood fights, which Al-Nahda's lone police station is incapable of containing. Rather than a sense of communal enterprise, drugs have filled the economic and emotional void.
Last year, when Mahmoud launched a study on conditions that make a community susceptible to drug abuse, she used Al-Nahda as her case study. Mahmoud says that a number of people among those who relocated to Al-Nahda were already involved in drugs, either as dealers or users. These people encouraged others to follow suit, and given the difficult economic and social conditions, the temptation was hard to resist. According to one resident interviewed during the study, drugs are so easily available in Al-Nahda that "one can buy them at the grocers'."
It's a grim picture for what started as such a promising venture. So far the government has refrained from collecting rent -- LE70 for general state housing, LE25 for earthquake victims. But for the people who struggle to live in these new cities, the gesture is not enough. People like Hussein have given up on government support and instead tout the importance of encouraging private initiatives and NGOs. "The poor areas need the support of the rich," Hussein says, but what seems more evident is that the poor need to be heard first -- before any more elaborate plans are drawn.
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