APPROACHES IN HOUSING THE POOR NEXT STEP

WHAT CAN LGUs DO FOR HOUSING THE POOR? 1. Best practice summaries, information
exchange
1. Tenure assistance and land acquisition
2. Approaches to a few key issues: tenure,
2. Community infrastructure
costs and financing, LGNGO-PO
a. Site infrastructure
partnership, etc.
b. Associated infrastructue
3. Scaling up
3. Other assistance: livelihood, community
4. Institutional reform to provide a better
organization & empowerment, schools,
enabling environment at National
capacity building
Government level
4. Most important: Vision (squatter-free
cities), program, political will.
LEADERSHIP ROLE FOR LGUs.
PLANNED WORLD BANK SUPPORT

Urban Shelter and Community Infrastructure

LGUs PARTNERSHIPS Project

1. National Government: Enabling Project Objective:

Environment
• to test sustainable, LGU-led
2. Private Sectors
approaches for improving the
3. NGOs:
living conditions of the urban
• National NGOs (Habitat for
poor in unserviced informal
Humanity, PBSP, UPC, etc.)
settlements
• Local NGOs
• Churches Key Learning Objectives:
4. POs: actual participation of the poor
ultimately determines success • Community infrastructure in
parallel with tenure programs
• LGU implemented urban
upgrading (LGU borrowing and
FINANCING
repayment)
1. Who will pay? • Programmatic approach to
• Beneficiaries upgrading at LGU level
• Local tax payer • Testing cost recovery schemes
• National tax payer for investment
2. Key issue: affordability at all three levels • Dialogue on CMP reform
• More favorable NG grant: fewer
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cities covered; other priorities
affected URBAN UPGRADING
• More LG grant to communities:
Squatter slums - tend to be on the outskirts and
fewer communities covered
often illegally occupy land.
• Full cost recovery by
beneficiaries: program not really Older city sections – it is where City center slums
helping the poor are found
3. Where will funding come from? Actions
at all three levels City center slums
• Increase city internal revenue - are found with families and young
generation migrants crowded into run-down
• Greater cost recovery from buildings with very poor or no services.
beneficiaries - They generally rent rooms or share small
• More efficient NG assistance apartments in converted houses or
program. apartment buildings

REBANO, TIMOTHY KERUBIN L.

 - Services are deteriorated and other public
services are poorly provided or non-
existent.
- Historical districts often suffer from
deterioration and decline and they
require sensitive approaches
improvement.
- there are many casual employment
opportunities, and housing is very
inexpensive although rundown
- Important to bring the infrastructure up
to standard, and providing basic services
CHARACTERISTICS OF STRESSED COMMUNITIES
• Lack of basic services
• Insecure or unclear tenure of land
• Low household incomes
• Dependence upon informal work
opportunities
URBAN UPGRADING AS A RESPONSE
CULTURAL BELIEFS (SELECTING THE LOT)
1. KAPAMPANGANS - one should avoid
buying a deadend lot because it can
cause financial misfortune or death in
the family.
to
2. cut down aratilis trees that grow on your
lot to prevent your daughters from
getting pregnant out of wedlock in the
future.
3. Be wary of houses or lots being sold for
prices that are too good to be true.
Chances are, these places have
witnessed harrowing incidents in the
past and can bring misfortune
4. If you find a snake in your new yard or
lot, consider it a sign of good luck in
business or work. But eliminate or
remove the animal quickly—bites are
not lucky at all.
5. New houses should not be built over the
ruins of old ones because new
structures will have short life spans.
6. House posts with cracks bring bad luck.

Objective:
CULTURAL BELIEFS (LAYING THE FOUNDATION)
• Improve overall conditions
• Safeguard from displacement
• Encourage self-rehabilitation
• Stimulate small business
expansion
• Ensure affordability
TYPES OF UPGRADING PROGRAM
• Community Infrastructure
• Lot Titling
• Comprehensive Upgrading
URBAN UPGRADING:
- National Upgrading Programs require
guidelines for assessing the positive and
negative impacts of projects on the
natural resource base.
- Properly planned and implemented
upgrading at local and national levels can
improve depressed communities,
stimulate residents to improve their own
homes, and make the community an
integral part of the urban fabric.
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1. Imprint an old coin on the doorstep of
your home to encourage steady cash
flow
2. Embed loose coins or religious
medallions inside foundation posts for
good luck.
3. It is thought that the blood of a pig or
chicken smeared on the house’s
foundation prevents bad spirits from
wreaking havoc on the home
4. A house becomes resilient to typhoons if
posts were turned clockwise before
being fixed permanently in their
positions
CULTURAL BELIEFS (ORIENTING HOUSE
ELEMENTS)
1. house front should face east to
encourage sunshine through the front
door, which brings prosperity to the
home.
2. house should not face the west, as this
can bring financial difficulties, quarrels,
and death to its residents.
 3. Avoid placing a mirror across the main
door of a house to prevent deflecting
good luck that enters your home.
4. The roof ridge should not face the east
or west
CULTURAL BELIEFS (ORIENTING HOUSE
ELEMENTS)
1. The number of steps on a staircase
should not be a multiple of three. This
follows the theory of the “oro, plata,
mata” which literally translates to gold,
silver and death.
2. The stairs should always turn to the right,
as this direction denotes the moral path.
3. A stair turning to the left might cause
infidelity in a marriage.
CULTURAL BELIEFS (PLANNING HOUSE DETAILS)
1. Interior doors should not face parallel to
doors facing outdoors to prevent easy
flow of luck through the house.
2. Do not reduce a two-story house into a
single-story structure because it will cut
short the lives of the house residents.
3. Never use 13 as a house number.
4. Transfer to your new home no later than
six in the morning during the new moon
to ensure fortune in your new home.
5. The first things that must be brought
inside the house are salt, rice and coins.
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REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (POSTS)
1. BONTOC - front door of the house must
face against the flow of a nearby river
2. ROMBLON - roof of the house must slope
following the direction of the incline of
the nearby mountains.
3. CORDILLERAS - The ridge of the roof is
always positioned at right angles to the
ridge of the mountain on which the
house stands.
4. IBALOIS (Benguet ethnic group in the
Cordilleras) - give ample space
underneath their houses by elevating
their floors to accommodate the future
tomb of the owner to ensure perpetual
guidance over the house the dead leaves
behind.
5. SOUTHERN TAGALOG - posts are erected
following this procedure: posts are laid
with their bottom ends at the footing on
the ground and the top ends pointing
towards the east.
6. SOUTHERN TAGALOG - The post nearest
the east is the first to be raised.
7. SOUTHERN TAGALOG - The same
procedure is followed for the other
posts, one after the other in a clockwise
direction as one reads the plan.
8. ROMBLON – same manner of raising the
posts is clockwise believing that it will
make the house windproof
9. TAUSUGS - equate the building of a
house to the development of a fetus
10. TAUSUGS - They believe that the first
11. to appear in a woman’s womb is the
navel. Hence, the first post to be erected
should be the main post within the
interior of the house.
12. CAGAYAN VALLEY - the first post to be
raised is the one positioned nearest to
the northeast. But this is done after the
footings have been sprinkled with wine.
13. BATAAN - caution against having a
solitary post in the middle of a room. It is
said to bring misfortune to the family.
14. TAGALOG – posts situated this way augur
a “heavily laden” life (mabigat ang
kabuhayan).
15. YAKANS - do not use crooked wooden
posts especially the ones with knotholes
in them because they are said to
symbolize death.
16. BAYAMBANG, PANGASINAN - termites
(anay) will not enter the house if the
bottoms of all wooden posts are first
charred.
REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (STAIRS)
1. ILOCANOS - orientation towards the east
is also required for stairs. They position
their stairs so that they rise with the
morning sun. To them, if it were the
other way around, meant turning one’s
back on fate.
2. PANDI, BULACAN - stairway facing east is
considered bad luck because, they say,
anything facing the early sun dries up
ahead of all others, and in the same
token, wealth taken into the house will
dry up much faster.
 3. If there is no way one can make the stairs
face east, at least make them face any
nearby mountain.
4. If one's lot abuts a river, position the
stairs in a way that they are facing
upstream. This is so in order that good
luck from the house would never be
washed away with the river's flow.
5. the proposed house is beside the sea, or
if one is building a beach house, plan the
stairs in such a way that they run parallel
with the shore. If the stairs are
perpendicular to the shoreline, luck may
flow in but also flow out with the tides.
6. WESTERN COUNTRIES - consider it bad
luck to walk under a ladder (safety
precaution than superstition). Locally,
one should not make a passageway any
area under the stairs.
7. TAGALOGS - never use the space
beneath the stairs as a sleeping quarter.
8. ILONGGO - The underside of wooden
stairs of their houses are usually
completed covered not because of
peeping Toms but because the old folks
say so
9. When planning a structure with two or
more storeys, the stairway should not be
positioned at the center of the structure
so as not to divide the building into two
equal parts.
10. It is believed that the dried umbilical
cord of a son or daughter of the house
owner inserted in the staircase will
strongly bind the stringer with its
supporting girder.
11. YAKANS OF MINDANAO - Contrary to the
Oro, Plata, Mata, they believe in odd
numbering of steps. They also require an
odd number of bedrooms.
REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (DOORS)
1. It is advised that doors should not face
each other.
2. NORTH - The people associate this with
the easy passage of a coffin through two
doors that directly face each other.
3. Most regions in the country also avoid
positioning the main gate of the lot
opposite the main entrance of the house
itself.
4. STA. MARIA AND SAN MIGUEL, BULACAN
- wide doors facing each other are
considered lucky, especially if they lead
to the terrace or garden.
5. One’s door also should not directly face
one’s neighbors to avoid future conflicts
with the said households and to avoid
wrestling with each other for the
possession of the luck
REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (LIVING ROOM)
1. Sunken rooms, like basements are
looked at as pockets of caves where evil
spirits can hide. It is balanced off only
when an exit lower than the said room is
provided.
2. ILOCANOS - do not want basements
altogether because of the belief that
only coffins should be found under the
ground.
3. STA. MARIA, BULACAN - floors of the
living and dining rooms must be of the
same level. They say the imaginary “ball
of fortune” must be able to freely roll
across both floors.
4. Overly ornate living and dining room
ceilings, especially those with cornices,
moldings, and other superficial
decorations are avoided as it tends to
make the ceiling look like a coffin.
5. The “mansard” or flat type of roof
invented at the turn of the century are
avoided as it reminds people of a coffin.
REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (BEDS &
BEDROOM)
1. Doors of one’s bedrooms in such a way
that when it is opened, would face
neither the foot nor head of the bed.
There should always have a space
between.
2. Position the bed such that the
headboard does not rest against a
window opening.
3. Neither should you put any bed under a
cross beam. Position the bed so that the
occupant will not be lying perpendicular
to the beam.
4. For houses with second floors, no
drainage pipe runs inside or under the
floor where the bed is located because it
contains unclean fluids associated with
bad energies which may affect the good
 spirits of the people sleeping over these
pipes.
5. Do not place bedrooms in the basement
portion of the house. It is always
preferred (luck-wise) that the bedroom
floor is higher than the living room.
6. Nonsleeping rooms like library, den,
foyer, storage, etc. can be at a lower level
than that of the living room.

REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS (DINING ROOMS)

1. PAMPANGOS - love to cook (and eat), so

most of their dining rooms are situated
in the sunniest and brightest locations of
the house.
2. ILOCANOS - prefer subdued lighting
because they consider eating a solemn
occasion.