Social housing, communities, and public policy in times of crisis

By Anne BURLAT, urban planner and architect

While in France, the issue of the right to housing raises issues about social housing and its ability to respond to a variety of situations, in urban areas in the Global South, it immediately conjures up the iconic image of the slum.

This word has almost disappeared from scientific articles seeking to clarify the subject (precarious, informal, spontaneous housing, etc.). It returned to the forefront of the French scene in December 2024, hammered home by multiple comments as Cyclone Chido swept across the island of Mayotte. Easily understood by all, thanks to the meaning of its two constituent terms, it is intrinsically associated with images of corrugated iron shacks, muddy or dusty alleys, and poverty. At the sight of these flimsy dwellings blown away by the force of the winds, a question arose naturally in the comments, in the form of an obvious statement: “What if the destruction caused by Chido were an opportunity to rebuild a safer, more dignified urban environment?”

This article is based on this crazy question, which everyone heard and asked themselves. To address it, we wanted to establish links with factual responses from other territories to other disasters. Because in fact, this question comes up again and again, like a mantra, stipulating a clean slate for a previously inhabited territory. But this is only an illusion; it cannot exist. The realities of these territories all have deep roots in endogenous processes.

Informality

The initial premise is the observation that these informal dwellings are, above all and for everyone, a response to the impossibility of finding a place in the conventional urban system[1]. Informality is understood as the impossibility of integrating the current institutional formalism and not as postulating an absence of form, which would be totally erroneous.

The purpose of this article is therefore twofold. It focuses on the challenges of integrating (institutional) formalism in relation to form (of induced life). It departs from the unifying reference to informality: behind the harsh reality of life, an informal neighborhood in Medellín, Nouakchott, or Mayotte does not have the same meaning or the same reasons for existing. Their institutional context is difficult to compare, as are their scale of territory, urbanity, and individual situations.

Taking action

The use of examples that cannot be compared allows us to highlight three levels of action and to ask the question of their mutual exclusions or their (necessary) complementarities in the responses provided:

·  The needs of residents—their realities,

·  The built environment - housing,

·  The urban form - the neighborhood;

As well as a modality:

·  Political support (or its absence or weakness) for projects.

I - CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, recovery from an urban crisis in BANGUI, 2013-16

The political crisis in the Central African Republic, which arose from the overthrow of President F. Bozizé in March 2013 by the Séléka, a group of rebel forces, escalated into civil war after the intervention of the anti-balaka militias, who came to overthrow the transitional president, Mr. Djotodja.

Several targeted neighborhoods in the capital were subjected to abuses aimed at eradicating their populations. Violence and looting almost completely destroyed these urban neighborhoods, which were quickly covered by equatorial vegetation (see 2015 satellite photo). . The proximity of the airport to the northwest of the targeted neighborhoods (Fondo, Boulata, Sara-Yakité, among others) allowed their inhabitants to take refuge there and set up a temporary camp. In order to enable their resettlement, humanitarian actors undertook to rebuild minimal dwellings (21 m²), which the government criticized and banned, considering that a dwelling smaller than 35 m² could not be considered decent.

Behind this dispute, which has not really been resolved, lie several issues that can be summarized as the consideration given to housing in these working-class neighborhoods, which the government considers informal. This is where the image of the mythical clean slate comes in: taking advantage of the liberation of these neighborhoods, which have become central, from the working-class housing that occupied them, to build a modern city.

Ultimately, at no point was the evolution of the humanitarian crisis into an urban crisis identified, preventing sustainable reconstruction [2]. Each actor on the ground gave their opinion. Humanitarian organizations acted within their means: the vulnerable person/household. Infrastructure (re)construction was carried out. Discussions took place, highlighting the difference in perspective between humanitarian and government actors. In the absence of agreement, action, and coordination to engage in operational processes, nothing was achieved in terms of urban planning. With time and the support of peace-building programs, calm returned, as did the inhabitants, at their own pace and undoubtedly not all of them. They have, individually, rebuilt a priori on their former land, but in the absence of studies, the actual mixing of populations is poorly documented. In 2024, the satellite photo does not differ fundamentally from that of 2013, and the World Bank has recently launched an urban development project, PROVIR (targeting four cities in the Central African Republic, including Bangui).

The situation can thus be characterized by:

·  A challenge in terms of form (housing size) resulting from two different conceptions of needs by two different actors: shelter with the possibility of future expansion (NGOs) or the need for two bedrooms for a decent life (government);

·  No work on urban form, but excessive ambitions on the part of the government with weak political support;

· Exogenous funding dedicated to humanitarian actions.

II - NEPAL, post-earthquake reconstruction (2015) in LAPRAK

In response to the earthquake and its aftershocks on April 25, 2015, a massive influx of goodwill and donations arrived in Nepal: international aid. The scale was commensurate with the very personal sympathy for this small Himalayan country. The first challenge for Nepal was therefore to avoid being overwhelmed and to establish as quickly as possible the framework within which reconstruction could take place. The initial focus on the emergency, followed by the search for ways to clear the mountains of rubble that no one was interested in, gave the government time to enter into this process, which it wanted to control. Understanding and choice, which is why international support was very present and varied depending on the nationality of the expertise and funds.

Laprak is a village of about 500 households located in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter. Its houses were very badly damaged, and the reconstruction work carried out perfectly reflects the different trends at work.

On the one hand, the initial interventions focused on rebuilding homes in the village (see photos below). A training site (non-governmental organizations) using traditional techniques enabled the villagers to reappropriate traditional techniques and the role of seismic bracing to rebuild their homes. At the same time, a large number of Nepalese inspectors were trained by the government in these techniques in order to provide the best possible support for the residents' reconstruction efforts. The transmission of knowledge, which was understood to varying degrees, the introduction of industrial materials, and a desire for modernity sometimes resulted in hybrid constructions. Overall, however, the results are of high quality. Finally, several earthquake-resistant community facilities projects have been carried out, always based on traditional construction techniques that have been reinterpreted to varying degrees.

In addition, the government has planned and carried out the reconstruction of new villages for those most affected. The whole project was designed around the orderly multiplication of a model dwelling. The latter was the subject of in-depth work, in conjunction with ongoing training for individual reconstruction and minimum housing. The result (see photo below) is more reminiscent of a giant housing development than a mountain village: it is not enough to simply add houses together to create urbanity. In November 2023, the new village of Laprak showed no signs of village life, but a restaurant for passing trekkers (Manaslu tour) had found a place there. 

The situation can thus be characterized by:

· Significant and widely shared work on the (technical) construction of housing: rebuilding in an earthquake-resistant manner with available, traditional materials.

· Two types of intervention, each organized between a national party that wanted to maintain control of the whole and international aid:

· Support for individual reconstruction on site, supplemented by the construction of community facilities, with a reproduction of the existing village form.

· Strong and sincere government intervention for the construction of new villages based on the geometric repetition of individual houses. No consideration was given to village life (the urban) form.

III - MAYOTTE, Chido, or imposed awareness

The third context of this presentation is therefore Mayotte. An institutional framework that is completely different from the previous ones, since Mayotte is a very recent overseas department and region of France, a country that has, among other things:

· developed a strong and decentralized institutional system,

· implemented aid policies, including social housing, so that everyone can live with dignity within society.

The conflictual situation that prevailed during Mayotte's political separation from its geographical archipelago (1975), followed by its recent and partial departmentalization (2011), under a tropical oceanic climate, created the territorial context that Chido experienced with a bang on December 14, 2024. I will not repeat here the figures that testify to its poverty or structural immigration, as the media have repeated them ad nauseam. Let us remember that, while the island's population growth began in 1960, since the 1980s it has shown a dizzying regularity that nothing can slow down, with the population having quintupled in forty years.

For the record:

· 1958: 23,360 inhabitants (ref. INSEE)

· (+ 27 years) 1985: 67,200

· (+ 38 years) 2023: 310,000

In practical terms, this means that if INSEE records 54,000 additional inhabitants between 2017 and 2023, this represents more than 10,000 new households, and therefore 10,000 new homes, just for the last six years. However, the supply of housing is not keeping pace with demand.

As a result, in Mayotte, on the one hand, informal neighborhoods are developing on the urban fringes, where the steep topography encourages them to spread out into a multitude of sites. On the other hand, the densification and impoverishment of the old villages (Kaweni, Majicavo, etc.) tend to assimilate them into informal neighborhoods.

But their structures, which are registered in the land registry and linked to their respective urban forms, raise very different questions.

TOTEM

The TOTEM (Un Toit pour Tous en Outre-Mer, or A Roof for All in Overseas Territories) call for proposals set the challenge of “developing affordable housing for these populations without compromising on quality.” The five winning projects mentioned can be characterized as follows:

·  Comprehensive work on the building, with adaptability to different housing formats and innovative construction processes.

·  No specific information regarding the possible specific needs of the inhabitants, so this knowledge was entrusted to the team's culture.

·  Very uneven work on the mass plan and urban form, a scale that was not specifically requested.

For these last two themes, only the team led by Harappa based its work on comprehensive sociological research, in which each individual was interviewed. The project presents a well-developed urban form, on a block scale rather than a neighborhood scale (25 housing units). The winning project is, in line with the call for proposals, an excellent architectural project for a social housing building on a single plot.

Finally, while the announced costs are between €900/m² and €1,100/m² including tax (2022) of floor space in line with the program, the websites of the agencies concerned show a global cost that is out of all proportion:

· AIR Architecture: €1.1 million excluding tax for 8 ToTem housing units (490 m² of floor space) in Kaweni, or €2,245/m²

And for a comparable project:

· Julien Beller: 10 housing units in M'Barazi for €1.6 million excluding tax

Clearly, the scale of intervention of a dozen dwellings in so-called pilot or innovative projects cannot be the only answer to the question of how to eliminate substandard housing on the island.

KOUNGOU - Not accepting substandard housing: acting, learning, in order to act...

The trigger for the town of Koungou was the collapse of the Majicavo embankment in 2018, which left five people dead. It highlighted the situation of substandard housing in a high-risk area. Stabilizing the embankment mobilized the regulatory tools of an RHI (slum clearance) operation. The path taken by the municipality between 2019 and 2024 highlights a chain of events whose outcome in 2025 presents both successes and risks.

The stabilization of the Majicavo slope was carried out through a two-stage RHI operation, 2019-2022 and 2023-(2026). It made it possible to:

· request specific financial tools (regulatory tools for housing policy);

· understand that social financing in France, based on two pillars, housing assistance and personal assistance, has only been partially implemented in Mayotte;

· note that disadvantaged populations do not have the financial means to access very low-rent housing (LLTS).

And in response, following the overseas conference (2019), to establish by decree (September 2021) a limited-time experimental process: LLTSA (adapted LLTS) for the DROMs[3] of Mayotte and French Guiana;

· to test the implementation of housing: prefabricated metal structures (in Europe) of the Meccano type, which can be built by non-professionals (initially studied with EPFAM[4] funding for its future projects);

· work with the populations concerned and their adaptation strategy in response to imposed temporary rehousing.

Capitalization 2025:

· The LLTSA is particularly difficult for social landlords. They find that they are unable to balance their budgets in view of the real cost of construction in Mayotte and are reluctant to integrate them, referring to them as substandard housing. Following Chido, the government extended the trial period without any capitalization being made.

· The model chosen includes a self-build component. Although well suited to home ownership, it has shown its limitations in this highly social context. A household that is unable to pay higher rent is unable to complete the housing, which makes it more prone to deterioration and therefore costly to manage.

· For phase 1, the temporary housing period was greatly reduced in a deliberately controlled schedule and did not pose any fundamental problems. The residents' difficulty in trusting the municipal institution led them to prefer to be rehoused with relatives nearby. For phase 2, the wealthy municipality of the Carobolé project's MOUS offered rehousing options in the village itself. These were refused by the families (information given verbally; a capitalization of the MOUS[5] studies conducted would be necessary).

· A container model was chosen for the temporary housing that was subsequently built (2022). While the cost is comparable to that of metal-framed houses, they can be constructed more quickly and with effective finishes. This model was reused (2024) for subsequent rehousing.

The municipality chose to remain the owner of the LLTSAs in the RHI[6] operation, as well as those in the relay villages intended for the rehousing of families, Hamachaka (2022) and Massimoni (2024). Management was entrusted to certified managers. It has proven to be complicated and the structures are not always up to standard. A real study of capitalization on the LLTSAs built is necessary.

Once the Majicavo RHI operation was launched by the municipality, the decision was made to move forward and work on the development between the village of Koungou and its educational facilities: middle schools and high schools. Between the two, there is a 50-meter difference in elevation and the oldest informal neighborhood of Koungou, which has stabilized over time: Carobolé, 4.6 hectares. The application of the Elan law was requested for the release of the land, which is public property.

The town hall's desire to guarantee public use of the development and therefore to retain control over it did not allow for construction to be sold off-plan (VEFA). This type of contract is usually used on the island, as it is risk-free in a tight market where unsold properties do not exist, to the detriment of urban public spaces. The development permit, which included a concession agreement for social housing, was preferred, and the SIM (GIE-TOI)/Colas consortium was selected. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2029, requiring temporary rehousing for five years.

Of the 199 households affected by the eviction, 187 were surveyed by MOUS[7], which revealed, among other things, that:

· 82 have a French head of household (66) or have a multi-year residence permit (16),

· These households have access to family and housing allowances, but no personalized housing assistance (APL) is paid in the DROMs;

· 57 households have a one-year residence permit, renewed annually, with the vast majority having been present for many years. These households are excluded from any social assistance requiring a right of residence of more than one year;

· 30 households are awaiting regularization without being illegal;

· 30 households have no documents and are therefore in an illegal situation or have not responded to survey requests.

The town hall was able to offer a rehousing solution to 80% of the households concerned, which a number of them declined. Letchimy law agreements are currently being studied with the DEAL for the planned compensation, to be implemented in early 2025. The municipality is promoting the guarantee of priority access to future housing: LLTSA[8], LLTS, LLS[9] or LATS[10] acquisition, depending on the households' possibilities and with a deduction from the amount of the legal compensation. For those who choose it, the compensation will be paid, which means that the household will no longer be considered for rehousing.

Capitalization 2025 of the Carobolé 2021-(2029) urban project:

· Carobolé is a real urban project (design: atelier les lieux fauves), a work including different types of social housing (421 dwellings), including 58 LLTSA, public spaces, several facilities (including a primary school) and commercial activities.

· The choice by the State to (over)value the right of residence for a single year, albeit renewable (some residents have had their residence renewed for 20 years), effectively excludes a very large proportion of households from personal assistance, encouraging the creation of precarious housing. The absence of APL (housing benefit) in a DROM (Overseas Department or Region) where materials, and therefore construction budgets, and therefore rents, are higher than elsewhere, also has an impact on the solvency of households in accessing social housing.

· The entire project process highlights the importance of coordination between stakeholders, both in terms of internal trust and the skills required. Without this characteristic, which was a real success, the project would not have been possible.

· However, once the agreement had been chosen, the time spent negotiating the contract was longer than expected (including the difficulty for the landlord to accept a large number of LLTSAs) despite a very operational desire to establish the tightest possible schedule.

· The temporary rehousing (between demolition and handover of the new homes) will last more than five years. There are no facilities on the island that can accommodate families for such a long period.

· Finally, while some families accepted the temporary housing offered, with the risk of eviction without a solution after one year, the majority did not want to leave Koungou because of their children's schooling (enrollment possibly refused elsewhere). The households' priority reflects their desire to preserve the foundations of social integration (access to public services, including schools).

Meanwhile, the municipality of Koungou has committed to demolishing a building used by slum landlords, Chehouliah (2022), for which prefectural and municipal decrees (2020) were still awaiting execution. This fact serves as a reminder that a parallel system of profit feeds on human distress. This system is powerful, with slum landlords being just one facet of it, as highlighted by the Carobolé MOUS in several ways.

Once Carobolé was contracted and the prefecture wished to continue its commitment, the municipality moved forward with the large-scale Mavadzani project (2024), freeing up a total of 12.5 hectares of land. Still with the desire to guarantee public use of the development and therefore to remain in control of it, this scale involves the establishment of a ZAC[11] with the classic triptych (developer, LS operator, and builder). But volunteers are not flocking to the project. A call for tenders is still ongoing and has been extended. The SIM (GIE-TOI)[12] involved in Carobolé has not yet applied. EPFAM reports difficulties in moving forward with the Longoni ZAC (a village north of the municipality of Koungou) and is involved, albeit slowly, in the Doujani ZAC, which has been under agreement since May 2018. Finally, AL'MA[13], which has just set up in Mayotte, may struggle to convince.

On December 2, 2024, the first stone of Carobolé was laid. On December 14, 2024, the violent winds of Chido devastated Mayotte, including the offices of the Koungou town hall.

What can we learn from this?

Koungou has decided to tackle what is considered, in fact, inevitable: substandard housing and access to land to build a city in the making. To do so, French regulations were invoked, their application was highly controversial, and the Directorate-General was heavily criticized for daring to destroy dwellings that were flimsy, precarious, and spontaneous, regardless of what they were called.

1 - Understanding

The development of informal housing is a response to an inability to integrate within current societal rules. Wanting to combat this type of housing also means questioning the rules and/or their application.

2 - Responding

The brief analysis of the process followed highlights the joint work, and its importance, on the three levels identified: Housing - Urban form - Residents' needs. Koungou has embarked on an ambitious response, which is not yet a success.

3 - Taking action

Political support is a major condition for success. It implies the necessary legitimacy of the public actor, and therefore its construction.

· Acquiring the necessary skills and providing them with an appropriate framework: in Mayotte, this involves managing the presence of land-use planning skills, which are largely underrepresented on the island.

· Corruption undermines any legitimacy: what follow-up is given to the various reports that denounce it (including those of the Regional Court of Auditors)?

Ensure perfect coordination between actors with different interests

Just because the objective is the same, the construction of housing, does not mean that all actors work with the same mindset. Real support for project management (AMO) can prove very useful, even necessary:

· Do not minimize the impact of delays—having a simplified, consolidated, inter-partner schedule provides a common basis for dialogue between the various languages;

· The inertia of a (single) partner can cause a project to fail: the absence of the Mayotte Departmental Council from the NPNRU[14] in Koungou = unpaid debts.

Innovate in processes to respond to specific challenges in the field

The desire on the part of the city of Koungou to establish a concession agreement for Carobolé, in order to guarantee a real public development project, has been highly controversial. The challenge is now clear and very risky for the Mavadzani ZAC, whose scale exceeds municipal capacities and challenges.

So, Chido?

Talking about opportunity makes no sense; informality has the ability to respond quickly to vital needs, and new bangasare popping up all over Mayotte. Once we understand that informality responds to the inability of households to integrate into established, or at least applied, societal rules, is it possible to accept, for this reconstruction project, the need to (re)raise the question of housing in a different way?

See Anne Burlat's presentation at the Campus on the theme of ‘Reinventing housing’ on March 5, 2025, at the Familistère de Guise.

[1] Article by Luc Gnacadja in this same AdP Bulletin #118

[2] A. Burlat, JB. Abderamane, When humanitarian response requires urban development policies, IIED, 2017, 48p.

[3] DROM: Overseas Department and Region

[4] EPFAM: Mayotte Public Land and Development Agency

[5] MOUS: Urban and Social Project Management

[6] RHI: Elimination of substandard housing

[7] See the article by Vanille Guichard and Clarisse Kinuthia – in this same AdP Bulletin #118

[8] LLTS, LLTSA: “Very social rental housing” and “Adapted very social rental housing”

[9] LLS: Social rental housing

[10] LATS: Very social home ownership

[11] ZAC: Concerted Development Zone

[12] SIM: Mayotte Real Estate Company

GIE: Economic Interest Group

TOI: Indian Ocean Territory

[13] AL'MA: Mayotte Housing Action

[14] NPNRU: New National Urban Renewal Program

This English translation was prepared with the assistance of DeepL, a language model developed by OpenAI, based on the original French article published in May 2025 on the AdP – Villes en Développement bulletin website.