Last year we spent significant time and energy designing and implementing a pilot of the Housing Support Centre (HSC) model. The pilot, called The Right to Build Initiative (RtBI), was implemented in a partnership with the City of Cape Town (CoCT) and the Backyard Matters (BYM) Project – itself a partnership initiative between the Development Action Group (DAG) and Isandla Institute. The RtBI, introduced in a previous blogpost, was informed by research on the HSC model conducted by Isandla Institute in 2023. Before giving you a taste of the lessons from the pilot, let’s quickly recap the main argument for HSCs.

To avoid the proliferation of unsafe and undignified dwellings, amid the scaling-up of serviced site provision by the state, as well as ongoing informal housing construction in established township areas, there must be enablement and support for incremental self-build housing construction, focussed on both state financial support and technical support via an HSC model. Rather than short-term project-linked support [e.g. the case in Enhanced People’s Housing Process (EPHP) projects], HSCs can provide ongoing and area-based support to the five broad categories of housing support needs, namely tenure security, access to basic services, top structure, neighbourhood improvement and sector support. This support can be suited to the specifics of different human settlement realities and needs and be provided in a variety of forms.

The RtBI piloted a basket of housing support services targeted at landlords and tenants in backyard housing. Outreach activities included monthly information sessions on topical housing-related issues, followed by a monthly Saturday advice clinic, where community members were able to get advice from City staff on any of the issues covered by the RtBI. These events were held in a city-owned community facility. In addition, City staff was present in the same venue on a weekday following the clinic, to give land use and building plan advice. Monthly meetings between DAG and the community leadership allowed for community monitoring of the pilot.

The need for and merit in housing support centres was affirmed through the pilot as evidenced by the types of issues raised by attendees at advice clinic and walk-in days, the advice and referrals given, and the predominantly positive attendee feedback. This feedback also indicated that attendees had improved knowledge of the themes covered and felt more empowered to act on this knowledge – both goals of the HSC model. Another key finding from the pilot was that HSCs can play a critical role in improving relationships between the municipality and residents and, more specifically, in (re-)building public trust in the municipality.

Four emerging high-level lessons can be drawn for piloting the model in other municipalities and human settlements contexts. First, data is important. As appropriate data on the backyard housing sector and township areas in general is generally lacking in most municipalities, in the absence of proxies it would be helpful to consider a baseline survey and a community needs survey to inform the design, monitoring and evaluation of similar initiatives.

Second, in terms of community engagement and uptake, selection criteria for choosing pilot areas should be developed, and these should include community readiness / capacity. It important to choose areas where the partner NGO(s) has / have a strong relationship with the community, or where there are strong leadership structures and level of community organisation. Also, communication is critical in targeting the correct target audiences as well explaining what the pilot is about and the value of attending the events.

Third, as the offerings of a HSC are not limited to one municipal department, it is important to draw in various departments and get the right people (e.g. executive directors and high-level staff as well as delegated lower-level staff) involved and secure their buy-in as early in the process as possible. Sufficient time (e.g. 4 to 6 months) for the institutional ‘bedding down’ of the initiative should be allowed for, so that there is clarity and political and administrative support for the objectives.

Lastly, a pilot such as the RtBI would not have been possible without a partnership between the City of Cape Town and the BYM project partners (DAG and Isandla Institute), as each stakeholder brought different expertise, networks and influence to bear. Similar initiatives will therefore need to focus on partnerships between local government, NGOs and other roleplayers. A partnership agreement is important for any similar initiative, and the roles, responsibilities and contributions of all partners need to be captured in the agreement. Monthly partnership meetings are useful for planning, ongoing monitoring and taking corrective decisions / actions, if necessary.

While the White Paper for Human Settlements (2024) contains encouraging policy commitments to collaboration with the private and NGO sectors in the establishment of Housing Support Centres (referred to as Local Housing/Transactional Support Centres) to support and enable self-build housing construction, it is important to pilot the HSC model in a variety of municipalities and human settlements contexts in order to refine it, draw lessons from these different contexts and build a solid evidence base to inform inclusion of the concept into human settlements policy and programming, primarily via the forthcoming Human Settlements Code.