COMMENTATOR (COMM): Previously on Life...

PETER MARCUSE: Housing needs to be treated not as a commodity but as ought to be treated as something that people have as a right.

SASKIA SASSEN: The space of the city begins to enable women and they can emerge as political subjects.

LILIANA MIRANDA: They know they want to get something they have to be organised.

COMM: Nearly one-third of Cape Town's population of three million live in slums or squatter settlements.

MA MAY: It's lot of problems to live in a shack: you are not feeling comfortable; you are not feeling safe. If you are in a shack while it's raining the rain can go in your shack. You are at work, you come back then you come on your bed, you want to sleep at night, it's wet - the rain has wet your bed. And the fire. When one shack burn at the other side you must be definitely sure: it comes to you straight.

COMM: This is the reality for four million homeless people across South Africa. A Sunday morning meeting of the South African Federation of Homeless People in Khayalitsha, a vast township East of Cape Town. The Federation is part of Shack Dwellers International - a world wide organisation of homeless people which helps to provide the poor with opportunities that otherwise they would never have. There are more than 80,000 members in South Africa. Most of them live in shacks. All of them dream of owning their own houses. This is the story of five women and what they are doing to make their dreams come true.

Cape Town: one of the world's rapidly growing cities has all the attractions that large cities offer. It is its proximity to the famous Table Mountain and beaches that define social status. The leafy green suburbs clinging to the upper slopes are the most affluent. Further away the housing is more modest. Far from the city on a windswept, sandy flood plain known as The Cape Flats and stretching further than the eye can see are the black townships and shack land. This is Khayalitsha - meaning "New Home".

For 30 years there has been an ever-increasing flow of people from the desperately poor rural areas of the Eastern Cape to the city - where there is some hope of work. These migrants, often women and children, build squatter settlements for themselves outside the city - not even the Apartheid laws forbidding blacks to live in areas of the country reserved for whites could keep them away. When the ANC came to power in 1994 President Mandela promised to build a million houses in five years. The new government introduced a system of one-off grants and subsidies to enable houses like these to be built for the very poor. It has met its target - a considerable achievement - but many are still waiting for houses.

SANKIE MTHEMBI-MAKANYELE, Minister of Housing, South Africa: We're talking about four million people prior to 1994 who didn't have shelter but now have shelter. We provide a home - there has to be electricity, water and sanitation. We are also providing a hope to people who have - some of them have waited for two years for just that 40 square metre.

JOEL BOLNICK, Secretary, Shack Dwellers International: One has to start by acknowledging the government's successes. For generations there has been very few examples as effective as this one. One has to go back decades to see the kind of capacity and the scale of delivery that this government has met but it has faced a number of obvious constraints and problems. And one of those is that what they have been able to deliver is not really a decent or an adequate shelter in the majority of cases. Er, and there is quite a negative association - even within the communities - towards what are known as "the RDP houses".

COMM: RDP stands for Reconstruction and Development Programme - the government programme that's constructing houses for the poor in South Africa, like these in Khayalitsha.

CHARLOTTE LAMOHR, Director, Housing Management, Cape Town: Since 1994 you have one uniform policy where each eligible household is entitled to a once-off subsidy - a grant which does not have to be repaid. It is intended as a starting mechanism; a kick-start into the housing market, as we like to call it. It was never intended to be the only mechanism.

COMM: Mildred Mqwathi is one of the 150,000 people in Cape Town to have moved into one of the government built RDP houses. With only one room and a bathroom, even a house as small as this is an improvement over the shack that she lived in for 28 years. With many children and no job her life is hard.

MILDRED MQWATHI (TRANSLATION): I lived in the shack from 1972 up till last year, which was 2000. All the time I lived in the shack. I was tired of shack life - this is much better. In a shack, when it's cold it is cold inside, if it is hot it is dreadfully hot inside. Also, people die in shacks; they are burnt alive in shacks. There are nine children in my care now - counting the grandchildren. Seven of them are my own and two are grandchildren. My shack was built by my husband, then he got sick - he had a stroke. My husband passed away in 1995. We sleep four to a bed. Next to the bed we use a mattress. We don't get much sleep. Even though it is small I am satisfied because it is not like staying in a shack and getting wet.

COMM: These government houses are small and cramped but ownership of even such a small house does give security. Those who can afford to make extensions and improvements. Those that can't simply rebuild their shacks - either to increase the living space or to rent them out as a form of income. Boniswa Kuse lives in a one-room shack with two of her children, in the backyard of just such a house.

BONISWA KUSE: These places - it's not good for the kids. The, the shack sometimes is burning -things like that. I need a big house because I have a family. It's not life, to stay like this.

COMM: Overcrowding causes problems of crime, family breakdown, environmental pollution and disease. According to the South African Department of Health, the Western Cape has the highest Tuberculosis rate in the world and a rapidly growing HIV infected population. People keep on arriving, searching for a better life in the city. About ten thousand families come to Cape Town each year, trying to escape the poverty of rural areas like the Eastern Cape. This family are recent arrivals; the piece of waste ground on the edge of Khayalitsha, where they are building their shacks lacks even the most basic amenities.

CHARLOTTE LAMOHR: In the metropolitan area there is something in the region of 160,000 shacks at the moment. I think it will take a long time - it will take more than 20 years to work off that backlog alone, and we are not taking into account any new shack developments that might spring up. What the answers are, I - I really don't have them.

COMM: Dealing with the housing backlog and the ever-growing need for new houses is beyond the capacity of any government to solve on its own.

SANKIE MTHEMBI-MAKANYELE: We are looking at a multi-pronged approach to housing provision because we think no single approach can provide us with shelter if we've got this backlog which is very huge.

COMM: There are other organisations who've come up with different - and sometimes more innovative schemes.

THELMA MDAKA, South Africa Homeless People's Federation: Homeless People's Federation is women and men who desperately want to live in their own houses. So we build these houses on our own. First thing we save a little bit money - one rand, two rand to five rand - it depends to you. Then you got your own little saving book. I started this process 1995, to join this Federation. It's a nice thing to join but it takes long time. Some of us we are old already but we've been patiently waiting to get the houses. For 15 years I've been staying in a shack and now I'll be moving into this house tomorrow. I'll be coming in with a big huge truck with my things! This is my sitting room - this. It's all attached together, the kitchen and the sitting room.

COMM: Thelma's house is in the third phase of the Victoria Mxenge Housing Development. This was the first project of the South African Federation of Homeless People in South Africa. It was started by a group of 30 women who lived in squatter shacks in Khayalitsha. They drew their inspiration from the Bombay slum-dwellers who visited them in 1991. Patricia Matolengwe was one of the Federation's first members. Until only a year ago she too lived in a shack. She moved into her own house very recently.

PATRICIA MATOLENGWE: Fortunately we were lucky. We achieved something which we never thought of. It's something which is still surprising - as if you are dreaming.

COMM: The women in the federation make regular savings of small sums of money, which are pooled in a savings scheme. This enables them to add to the government grants and with input from themselves, build bigger houses.

PATRICIA MATOLENGWE, National Chairperson, South Africa Homeless People's Federation: I think that for the women it was because it was something that was voluntary. Men are always like to involve themselves where they are going to get something towards what they are doing. So I can say that because women are always dedicate themselves to be volunteers then it was easier for them to involve themselves than the men.

COMM: Today Thelma is moving into her house.

THELMA MDAKA: When I was given the key to this house I was shocked - really! Although I know the house was always - is getting built I didn't know it was going to come for me. It was a shock for me. Well, it's like a little heaven for me because it's the first time for me to be staying in a house like this. I'm happy, I'm pleased. Bit by bit I'll try and make it better and better.

COMM: The Federation of Homeless People have now built nearly 10,000 houses themselves throughout South Africa - a remarkable contribution to the government's housing target. There are now nearly 600 houses in various stages of construction at Victoria Mxenge and the related developments of Hazeldean and Vukuzenzele. It is a small oasis in a seemingly endless sea of shack dwellings and squalor. Lulama Katsha's house is not far from Thelma's. She moved in three months ago. The houses vary in size and design depending on how much the women are able to contribute.

LULAMA KATSHA, South Africa Homeless People's Federation: My house is 72 square metre. It's a three bedroom and a bathroom and the kitchen, a dining room and a lounge. I'm very proud of it and I say that I did work very hard for it. I'm telling you - about two, three I will wake up; it's as if I'm dreaming of I'm still there, it's as if I'm in another place. I wake up on my bed, come to sit here - just going around and look to see if it's true that I am in my house.

COMM: Lulama does the bookkeeping for some federation projects.

LULAMA KATSHA: It has been good for me because I'm getting a lot of experience of things and to be involved with a lot of people. The bookkeeping, I learned from the Federation because I didn't know about the, the bookkeeping.

COMM: Every day new members of the Housing Federation come to seek help and advice at the Victoria Mxenge community centre. This is where records of all the groups in the province are kept.

PATRICIA MATOLENGWE: Everybody was discouraging and say that: 'No ways, forget it! It's not going to work.' But we keep on trying and trying up to now - today we don't believe ourselves. Everybody doesn't believe the houses we have. Everybody's still asking: 'Is it me? After so many years.' You know.

COMM: Thelma's long years of waiting are over.

THELMA MDAKA: Well, my house is perfect! Never mind then that it's like that - I'm happy I'm in something. It's perfect!

COMM: Thelma and her grandchildren have settled in their new home. Each year there are exchange visits between members of the South African Federation and similar organisations in other countries - like India, Thailand and Ethiopia. These visits have been crucial to the way the federation has developed.

JOEL BOLNICK, Secretary, Shack Dwellers International: Any single community only has a finite range of experiences to draw on for its own development needs. So if you like many communities together they just are able to learn not only from their experience but from the experiences of others. So one can say without exaggerating it that those exchange visits are the goose that carries the golden egg. Without those exchange visits you don't have a federation.

PATRICIA MATOLENGWE, National Chairperson, South Africa Homeless People's Federation: I learnt a lot from them because we were having exchange programmes that - so that we can see that we are not the only one who are the very poor. I mean, in some of these countries - most of these countries - we were sharing the experience of the poverty.

COMM: Setting up their own saving scheme has been key to the success of the Victoria Mxenge women. Not only has it enabled each of them to take out loans to build the kind of houses they want, it's also meant that the money repaid goes back into their own community. The crèche provides child-care for working mothers. The women have started a small pottery. With a scheme to grow lilies for the commercial market, income is generated for the women who participate.

PATRICIA MATOLENGWE: We need to stand up, we need to organise ourselves; we need start to secure our own monies and start to be part and parcel of the economy of this country.

JOEL BOLNICK: It sort of acts as an attraction to government finance because what the government likes about the Federation Process is that the money revolves. People take loans, they use the those loans to meet certain needs. Those loans are repaid and then the next family is able to utilise the same money to meet different needs.

COMM: The work of the Federation has inspired similar saving schemes in South Africa and has also influenced government policy.

SANKIE MTHEMBI-MAKANYELE, Minister of Housing, South Africa: You look at the participation levels of the Peoples' Housing Process: it's the women. You look at the majority of the members of the saving schemes that we've been talking about: they are women.

JOEL BOLNICK: The government is moving very clearly towards placing savings at the centre of its subsidy system - and that can be traced directly to the Federation. The Federation has organised and mobilised women from its very inception around savings - and has used their savings as a leverage for housing.

CHARLOTTE LAMOHR, Director, Housing Management, Cape Town: I think the Federation has changed everyone's view toward housing and I'm very pleased about that. They've made government understand that they had been housing themselves for years and all they required were the mechanisms to enable them to do that. And I think this is, this is - it's brilliant.

COMM: Thelma is visiting her old shack to fetch her cat. Her adult children and their families have moved in.

THELMA MDAKA: Well, I've been staying in this house for 15 years - from 1985. As you see it's not a proper thing which is well done. All the time I was staying here I'm squashed. I-I like it because I spent most of my life in it, so that's why I left it standing - I didn't want to demolish it. Then it's the future for my child. I think that she's is going to be all right like this. It's used - very used to me.

COMM: Boniswe has only recently joined the federation and is now waiting for her turn to build.

BONISWE KUSE: It's nice to join the Federation because you save, you do things, you-you solve things with the people. It's very nice. I am very happy for that.

COMM: In other parts of Khayalitsha, The People's Housing Process is also a saving scheme for the homeless, endorsed by the government, it too allows people to have a say in building the kind of housing they really want. Ma May is one of the founding members.

JANE 'MA' MAY: I came from the Eastern Cape at 1974 because I come in look for work - for job. The People's Housing Process works like this: er we say the people will build their, their own houses themselves. Secondly, the people will choose what size of a house does she wants or he wants to build. And thirdly, people must know you can also stand up and use your head and your brains and your mind to get something - not to sit and say, "I want that!" I've learned a lot in this Housing Process. I am filling the forms in for people who is coming in to make application for the subsidy. When there is work outside for the block-yard I am also there. Helping the people there, making blocks. If one is missing - no problem, I am there.

COMM: Ma May's house is her pride and joy.

MA MAY: When I move here they make the finishing day on top there - it was on Friday. I come and sleep here on Friday, the same day! I say, 'I-I cannot wait!' And I called the guy there, I say, 'Please go and put my doors in. I don't mind the windows er-er haven't got glasses. I will stay in my house, the same Friday when they finish I move in. I sleep here, on this mat here on the floor. I was so happy. So happy! I couldn't believe. Early in the morning I wake up - half past four I open the door and I stand there by the street and look outside: is this really my house? I couldn't believe it - really. I am very happy.

SANKIE MTHEMBI-MAKANYELE: If you've involved people initially from the planning process to the completion of their home, they get attached to that structure because they've added what we call "Sweat Equity". They've made sure that they've participated in acquiring their own home.

JOEL BOLNICK: Well, the government policy has shifted more and more towards pushing developers to increase the size and the quality of the houses that they deliver. And the, the Federation has always been like a ghost in the machinery here. They haven't demanded that the government must increase the quality or the size of houses. They've just gone out and done it.

MA MAY: It's for my kids to stay here when, while - when I'm dead. This house they can show and say, "This house - my mother built this house."

COMM: Before dawn each day Boniswe leaves for her job as a domestic worker in the smart suburbs of Cape Town. It is a long journey and she earns very little - but having a job enables her to save. Like more than four million other South Africans she is still waiting for her house.

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