CAIRO - When Shadia Osman, or Umm Dina as her neighbours call her, received notification from her landlord's lawyer that she had one week notice to pay an overdue three months rent or get kicked out, she collapsed and burst into tears. A 39-year old divorcee with a 12-year old daughter, Shadia, like a big percentage of female breadwinners, lives from one day to the next. Shadia knows nothing about women empowerment or independence, but she knows very well that she has to work, so that by the end of the month, she can spare LE250 to pay the rent. Umm Dina can barely write her name as she is a school drop-out, and that's why she can't get a steady job. At times she makes bundles of green leaves to sell round the corner, but most of the time she works as a maid paid by the day for working class women in the poor district where she lives. Umm Dina had been out of work for many weeks and did not know how on earth she would get LE750 for the arrears. Although she finally turned to an old acquaintance, who agreed to lend her the money, Umm Dina was making a double effort to pay her bills, as she told The Egyptian Gazette. Umm Dina lives in a one-room flat in the basement of a shabby building. She has gotten used to the offending smell of the leaking gutter in front of her bedroom window and is glad that she has been able to live there for almost two years. Umm Dina has so far been committed to paying an extra 10 per cent of rent each year in compliance with the New Lease Law enforced in 1996. Although the landlord has been tolerant, since he understands her harsh living conditions, she is aware that one day she will be forced to move elsewhere. The New Lease Law was meant to find a way out for families that could not afford to buy apartments or find dwellings under the Old Lease Law. In practice, the law proved to give landlords the freedom to squash those living on low salaries, as there were no criteria determining these rents. The law leaves tenants in the hands of landlords; it is the opposite of the Old Lease Law, where tenants continue to pay the same tiny rent over many decades, despite inflation and price rises. At the same time, the landlord is not allowed to replace tenants with lifetime contracts. The New Lease Law has been held responsible for the unsettled lives of many families since contracts are limited to a period ranging from one to five years according to prior agreement between both parties. In posh areas, new rents are somewhere between LE2000 and 5000, while in shantytowns they go down to LE250. The cancellation of this system has become a public demand, because of the burden these rents cause for family budgets. People call for a new law that would strike a balance between rights of tenants and landlords and at the same time secure a settled life in a country, where people in general do not move from one place to another. Ali Fuad is a civil servant, who has moved several times during his eleven years of marriage. He had to move out every time the landlord raised the rent. The problem is, as he told Al-Gomhuriya newspaper, that he has three children who have changed schools more than once. “The transfer from one school to another is so tiring because of bureaucratic procedures that forced me to go from one educational directorate to another to get the required stamps and documents”, Fuad complained. His monthly pay of less than LE750 including increments does not cover basic expenses, let alone the high rent. Fuad had therefore to look for an extra part-time job to make ends meet. His sole wish is to find a permanent place to live. This would only be possible by means of a new law with a fair mechanism to control the current haphazard housing market.
