We are unhousing people and so are obliged to rehouse them

Previous articleNext article FreeBook SymposiumWe are unhousing people and so are obliged to rehouse them The moral economy of squatting Grohmann, Steph. 2020. The ethics of space: Homelessness and squatting in urban England. Chicago: Hau Books.Alan SmartAlan SmartUniversity of Calgary Search for more articles by this author Full TextPDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreSteph Grohmann has written an insightful and compelling ethnography of a phenomenon of global significance, and likely to be of growing importance in the wake of COVID-19, even if not in Britain where her research was conducted. She leaves us with a picture of decline of a housing alternative due to increasing legal repression of the possibility, and even compares her work with "salvage ethnography" in its portrait of ways of squatting becoming obsolete or at least fundamentally changed due to legal and political changes.I welcomed this opportunity to engage with her book because of its resonances and dissonances with my own work on squatters in Hong Kong since my doctoral field research on the clearance of squatter areas from 1982-1985. That was the period in which new squatting finally ended in Hong Kong, after peaking at over three-quarters of a million occupants in 1982. My current research involves using archived confidential documents produced before and during that period to understand how and why new squatting was ended after thirty-five years of intensive struggle against what was called the "squatter problem." However, because Hong Kong squatting was in the form of illegal building characteristic of the global South, rather than the occupying of vacant buildings associated with the global North, many squatter areas persisted after 1985, and people continue to move in and out of them. In this commentary, I draw on my research to reflect on Grohmann's work, focusing particularly on the moral economy of squatting.Britain was the metropolitan ruler of colonial Hong Kong until 1997, and particularly after 1967 put pressure on the colonial government to do something about the housing problems and the "squalor" of the squatter areas. In recent years London and Hong Kong have been neck and neck in measures of the most expensive real estate in the world. Despite these commonalities, one major difference is that squatting in Hong Kong had immense consequences in forming the contemporary city and its landscape. The geopolitics of Hong Kong's status as a colony on the edge of communist China, which made squatter clearance without resettlement impractical, combined with pressure from London, contributed to the creation and expansion of one of the largest and most successful public housing programs in the world, currently housing about 45 percent of the population (Smart 2006). Although political economic concerns have been central to these trajectories of governing informal housing (Smart 2001), the moral economy has also been a key influence on how squatting has been managed and discouraged. Here I focus on comparing its dynamics with those so well revealed by Grohmann for Bristol.There has been a tendency to separate the study of squatting of buildings (mostly in the global North) and squatting of land (mostly in the global South), despite the great potential for cross-fertilization and comparison. As part of our efforts to bridge the division, Thomas Aguilera and I found the phenomenon of toleration a key part of squatting in every case between the poles of complete repression and full legalization-and useful for comparison. Toleration creates a grey zone: illegal or informal housing is allowed to continue without being made legal, where a practice is neither successfully repressed nor integrated into dominant norms and laws. Tolerance opens space for self-management (Smart and Aguilera 2020). The moral economy of responses to squatting may be able to provide a comparable analytic lens. Grohmann emphasizes morality in a sophisticated discussion of anthropological approaches, but I prefer to think in terms of moral economy because it shifts the focus from moral judgment to the play of contesting moral claims and their consequences for property and other assets. As used by Thompson (1991: 188), the moral economy of the poor involves a "consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community." However, all economies involve moral judgments and restrictions, if only in restrictions on selling what is considered sacred or profane. It is useful to go beyond Thompson's particular usage of moral economy operating for a class-in-the-making in a particular nation and develop the idea for analysis of the particular forms of moral claims, limits and practices that operate in all historical and contemporary economies.Grohmann's book begins, and ends, with a successful political campaign that saw "squatting in a residential building" redefined as a criminal offense, and drastically constrained squatters. Squatters were presented as invaders and out of place, and "in this very spatial nonbelonging consists his [or her] moral repugnancy. Enlisting this construction to vilify squatters was successful precisely because there is a moral consensus in our culture that a 'home' should be free from intrusion, and to 'steal' it constitutes not only an economic but also a moral violation" (p. 8). The campaign called forth a "moral community comprising property owners" and setting the "lifestyle squatter" as its "immoral other," one that not only invaded the sacred space of homes but did so more from political opposition than from genuine need (p. 207). Her respondents, by contrast, professed different values, such as solidarity and mutual aid, and ranked them higher than other societal values "such as the sanctity of private property. This form of ethical judgment was, quite explicitly, both their rationale and their justification for squatting," and put them at odds with the values of "mainstream society" (p. 29). The regulatory system reinforced such values among the squatters, since squatting effectively required collaboration "because one person always had to be inside the squat to ensure legal possession," and was thought dangerous when illegal evictions took place. This interdependence meant that "the social ties within crews could become exceptionally strong" (p. 70).Moral claims were equally central to the organization and governance of squatting in Hong Kong, but the kinds of claims were quite different. Few Hong Kong squatters were anti-capitalist or rejected mainstream values; instead they were hoping for prosperity and advancement for their children, engaging in opposition only when government destroyed their homes and offered no viable alternatives. Although 90 percent of the households in the squatter area where I conducted participant observation had purchased their home, the Hong Kong government consistently refused to acknowledge any form of ownership, or squatter rights, by squatters. The regulatory system included provisional toleration of squatter structures until clearance, at which point occupants (not "owners") might qualify for resettlement in public housing. These policies created a regulatory vacuum in a society dominated by commodified relations, since they allowed illegal transactions to persist but did not extend to the legalization that should be a prerequisite for a conventional property market. Something needed to substitute for the absence of the state in governing this kind of property. The replacement could be simple possession, or the actions of a collective community controlling squatted land such as Latin American juntas. In Hong Kong, commodity norms that "a deal is a deal" played a role, supported by the interests of those involved in the production and consumption of squatter housing. This was not enough, though, to support a rental market, because in the event of a clearance, the "owners" would receive no compensation, while renters would get a windfall of much-desired access to public housing at low rents (Smart 2001). The squatter real estate market was neither mandated nor independent of government policy, but still structured by the unintended consequences of regulatory policies and practices.The core irony of the squatter problem in Hong Kong between 1949 and 1997 was that the government ended up providing millions of units of public housing for people that it considered morally undeserving. It worried that doing so would encourage more people to squat, increasing the shortage of land for development that already lay at the core of the squatter problem. Anything that rewarded illegal building, or which might be seen as acknowledging squatters' rights, was considered by government officers as creating incentives for people to do precisely what the government did not want them to do. Acquiescing to illegal squatting was also seen as having the undesirable consequences of encouraging larger influxes of refugees from China. An important 1950 report on the squatter problem argued "that it would be inadvisable to do anything to resolve the problem without the most careful precautions to ensure that (as will almost inevitably happen) the squatters themselves do not interpret such steps as official recognition of their right to their present occupation" and that continuing the present policy would "result in increasing numbers of squatters in increasingly inconvenient locations." Squatter areas where clearance was not "practicable" should be subjected to a "policy of attrition, the aim of which would be to make them as uncomfortable as possible in the hope that they will return to China. No social services of any sort would be encouraged" (McDouall 1950).Clearance without rehousing before 1954 led to frequent strong resistance by squatters without alternative access to affordable housing and angered by the destruction of their homes. The vulnerable geopolitics of a British colony on the margin of communist China were threatened by interventions by China prompted by repression and suffering of Chinese people (Smart 2006). These constraints and the need to make land available for development in the most densely populated city in the world, and the centrality of government revenues from Crown land, meant that resettling them in housing of minimal space (ninety-six square feet for a family of six) and amenities (shared bathroom and kitchen facilities) was the easiest way to achieve the government's ends. Even so, because of the economic and moral reluctance to house, and encourage, squatters rather than law-abiding residents, the government resisted adopting this eventual solution. It took a series of disasters to teach them that resettlement in multistory public housing was the best way to resolve the dilemma, with a total of 535,959 squatters resettled in the decade before 1963.The problem that emerged from the adoption of squatter resettlement was that it didn't solve the problem, but rather encouraged new squatting, even middle-class people to move into squatter areas as their only means of access to public housing. This created a situation of what economists have labeled "moral hazard": the ways in which the provision of insurance, private or public, can tempt people to engage in acts that are socially undesirable, or which increase the prevalence of risk or risky behavior within a population (Smart 2013). The concept is also central to discourses that stigmatize the poor and legitimize the reduction or removal of welfare benefits (Hirschman 1991). Although the term "moral hazard" was not used by colonial officials, the stigmatizing logic was clear in the decision to exclude squatter fire victims from resettlement housing in 1955. Rehousing for fire victims was limited to temporary housing areas, a practice that would economize on governmental financial and organizational resources, and remove dangerous perverse incentives for arson. The Commissioner for Resettlement listed the advantages of this policy as that "(a) It would not be very popular; (b) it would be cheaper than multi-storey resettlement; (c) it would be quicker than multi-storey resettlement and there would in consequence be a saving on free feeding; and (d) the planned programme of multi-storey resettlement would not be further disrupted by the additional fire victims" (Holmes 1954). During my fieldwork, however, I heard suspicions that it was instead government officers who were starting the fires, which were frequent at that time, in order to displace squatters without rehousing commitments.Clearance prompted sympathy for squatters from squatter control officers, recognizing that squatters generally had little choice, and that demolition involved destroying homes for those just trying to make their own shelter. Occasionally, high level officials also recognized the positive contributions of squatting. When London put pressure on Hong Kong in 1970 to do something about squatter areas on land not needed for development, a Resettlement Department official noted that most "tend to overlook the fact that such areas represent a very valuable public asset. These squatter areas use land, which would otherwise be wasted, to house large numbers of people at minimal public expense. The housing is not ideal, but from the point of view of the occupants it has great advantages" (Bridge 1970).By the mid-1970s, however, this kind of sympathy for and recognition of the value of squatting was displaced by discourses that rejected any moral validity of squatting, presenting squatters as cheats and queue jumpers who were unfairly advantaged at the expense of low-income people who had to wait for about seven years to access public housing through the means-tested Waiting List. These issues emerged in a review of eligibility criteria for public housing. The Chairman of the Housing Authority Operations Committee "felt strongly that illegal squatters should not be given permanent public housing when cleared, because, fundamentally, this would be unfair to applicants already on the Waiting List. He considered that, as a group, squatters were undeserving of special treatment; at present they were enjoying double benefits; they paid no rent and they could obtain permanent public housing ahead of Waiting List applicants. In his opinion, a distinction should be made between illegal squatters and other clearees." Elsie Elliott, normally a crusader for social justice, agreed with these views, suggesting that "all squatters should be required to register on the Waiting List ... if they wished to qualify for permanent housing on clearance. In this way, squatters could eventually be treated in the same way as Waiting List applicants." Another committee member said "squatters should be registered properly on the Waiting List, particularly as many had bought, and were continuing to buy, huts in the mistaken belief that they were obtaining a future 'investment' in public housing" (Housing Authority Operations Committee 1982).The Secretary of Home Affairs (Hong Kong) was in general supportive of means-testing public housing tenants, but argued that "Redevelopment is different and more difficult and so is clearance because in those cases we are unhousing people and so are obliged to rehouse them. But it is both inequitable to those on the Waiting List and stupid for our public image to give large new flats to people who can afford to rent private accommodation to take the overflow of their families" (Walden 1978). While public opinion supported reducing the priority of squatters, practical issues again cautioned against this, since it was strongly believed that such moves would increase the practical and political difficulties of development clearances. And such difficulties could threaten the pace of the public housing construction program. The effort to limit resettlement for squatters merged with a separate concern for "rich" sitting tenants, that is, those who could afford to rent in the private sector, who were also demonized. A compromise was achieved in which the Waiting List income limits were not imposed on cleared squatters (not until 1999) but all tenants would be evaluated for their income levels at the end of each ten years' period of occupancy, and charged double rent if their incomes were double or more the Waiting List income limits. In this way, income limits would not be imposed on squatters at clearance, but they and Waiting List applicants would still be treated equally on this criteria after ten years. This compromised between emerging moral evaluations that prioritized the poor and Hong Kong residents over squatters and new arrivals, on one hand, and the need to clear squatters to make land available for development without undesired political problems, on the other.As this brief sketch suggests, squatting played a large part in the formation of modern Hong Kong's landscape, as it has in most of the cities of the global South. While the scale of squatting differs from the global North, when we turn to issues of moral economy, we can see advantages of learning and collaborating across the geographical divide, and how some of the processes, such as stigmatization and legitimization through generating sympathy for those without housing alternatives, share fundamental similarities.I finish with comments on the global stakes of managing squatting in sensible ways that avoid stigmatization and find ways to build on the self-management capacities of marginalized communities. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of squatters increased by about 10 percent each year and could grow to two billion by 2030. Thus, squatters are not at the margin of global urbanism. Along with other informalities, they are at the core of globalization and urbanization. The irony is that many among the poor and precarious populations of Northern nations might be better off if informal housing solutions like squatting and self-help were more available. Given the anti-poor policies of rich cities, even tent cities have come to seem a humane alternative to zero-tolerance and exclusion. What strategies and policies might be considered to improve the situation? Can we learn something from the South in addressing the precarious housing situation of increasing proportions of the entire global population? In addition, informal settlements may be more effective at enhancing the livelihoods of those who dwell in them.Tolerating squatter areas can be a cheap way to cope with immense shortages of affordable housing, without committing to their permanence. Providing legal title to squatted plots and upgrading them may be given token priority, limiting investment to that available on favorable terms with supranational agencies like the World Bank. This does not mean that we need to promote squatter invasions of vacant land, or vacant buildings. The sites-and-services idea promoted by the World Bank does have it right in arguing that carefully planned, adequate and appropriate utilities are best installed prior to the building of homes, rather than shoehorned in afterward in complicated and challenging squatter upgrading projects. But because of increasingly complicated and expensive bureaucratic control over building and related ordinances, the dominance of property developers in urban politics, the interests of financial institutions in housing inflation, and NIMBYist local politics (Not In My Backyard), housing costs continue to grow faster than almost any other commodity, even during the 2020 pandemic. The fundamental problem of affordable housing for the majority in rapidly growing urban areas is unlikely to be resolved without addressing the fundamental interests of elite and powerful financial institutions and interests (Smart 2020). Squatting may only disappear when it is no longer needed, but in the post-COVID-19 economic downturns that are emerging at the time of writing, that need and the danger of increased evictions only seem to grow.ReferencesBridge, R. G. B. 1970. Resettlement Department, 23 December 1970. Hong Kong Record Series, 163-9-653. Archived in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHolmes, D. R. 1954. Commissioner for Resettlement, 22 November 1954. Hong Kong Record Series, 156-1-4429. Archived in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHirschman, Albert O. 1991. The rhetoric of reaction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHousing Authority Operations Committee 1982. Hong Kong Record Series, 934-8-61. Archived in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarMcDouall, J. C. 1950. "Report on squatters." November 8, 1950. Hong Kong Records Series, 163-1-779. Archived in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarSmart, Alan. 2001. "Unruly places: Urban governance and the persistence of illegality in Hong Kong's urban squatter areas." American Anthropologist 103 (1): 30-44.First citation in articleGoogle Scholar---. 2006. The and colonial in Hong Kong, Hong Hong Kong University Press.First citation in articleGoogle Scholar---. support for the fires, and in Hong In of social by and citation in articleGoogle Scholar---. 2020. In research of University citation in articleGoogle ScholarSmart, and Thomas 2020. a political economy of toleration of squatting in Hong Kong and In to informal housing the by Press.First citation in articleGoogle 1991. in in traditional Press.First citation in articleGoogle of Home Hong Kong, Hong Kong Record Series, Archived in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.First citation in articleGoogle Department of and University of is an urban who has conducted research in Hong Kong since in since and in since 2001. research and interests political economy, housing, urban of cities, and He is author of The and colonial in Hong Kong, (Hong Kong University Squatter clearance in Hong Kong of Hong Kong, and with of of and with of and globalization University of and has articles and in and Previous articleNext article by of on of the for The for no articles this

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