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Zimbabwe
Situated in Southern Africa and with a population of 14 million, Zimbabwe has a serious problem of homelessness, which is especially acute in its twenty-four urban centers. Zimbabwe's official definition of homelessness emphasizes legal home ownership. A household that legally owns a house is not considered homeless. Homelessness is thus equivalent to “houselessness.” Further, to qualify for inclusion in the official housing stock, a “house” has to meet stringent criteria that require conformity to minimum standards, approval for residential purposes, and location in an area zoned “residential.”
An Urban Phenomenon
This definition restricts homelessness to urban areas. Nonurban areas have no title deeds for buildings and do not require building permits. Even on private land, title deeds are for land, not buildings. Consequently, when the national housing crisis is officially documented, it is only the urban problem that is captured in detail. Nevertheless, there is an increasingly rural dimension to homelessness, which affects over 2 million people (see section below on causes).
Features of the Homeless Population
Zimbabwe has an urban population of 4.6 million. The national urban housing stock in 2002 was 600,000 units. Taking into account the annual urban population growth, the average household size, and the household formation rate, the cumulative urban housing deficit comes to 1 million units for the five-year period 2001 to 2005. To offset this deficit, 200,000 housing units need to be produced annually, but the actual annual housing production has never exceeded 25,000 units.
Homelessness by Criteria
Table 1 presents statistics from a 2001 to 2002 Centre for Architectural Research and Development Overseas (CARDO) study (Kamete, 2002) funded by the UK government's Department for International Development. Along with “houselessness,” landlessness is also increasing. Ironically, this is largely attributable to the government's land-reform program, which has displaced thousands of people from seized farms and rural areas. Seventy-five percent of the homeless are in the low-income category. Middleand high-income groups contribute 21 and 4 percent, respectively.
| Table 1. —Homelessness by Criteria | ||
|---|---|---|
| Criteria | Number | Notes |
| Housing ownership | 200,000 | No legal ownership |
| Housing standards | 150,000 | Substandard |
| Land | 300,000 | No legal ownership |
| Social welfare eligibility | 60,000 | Beneficiaries of per capita grants in institutions |
| Citizenship | 30,000 | International refugees |
Housing Conditions
The CARDO study investigated housing conditions for specific quintiles (Table 2). As shown, the homeless population includes roofless vagrants, street children, and residents of substandard houses.
| Table 2. —Housing Circumstances in Quintiles | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Quintile | Circumstances | Location | People affected |
| 1 | • Roofless | • Pavements | • Vagrants |
| • Bridges | • Street children | ||
| • Abandoned buildings | • Mentally ill | ||
| • Public areas | • Evictees | ||
| 2 | • Unauthorized | • Squatter camps | • Low-income workers |
| • Rudimentary structures | • Transit camps | ||
| • Public spaces | • The unemployed | ||
| • No services | • Open spaces | • Pensioners | |
| • Abandoned buildings | • Street children | ||
| 3 | • Slums | • Colonial highdensity areas | • Low-income workers |
| • Substandard | |||
| • Poorly serviced | • Institutional accommodation | • Lodgers | |
| • Overloaded facilities | • Retired | ||
| • Domestic quarters | • Retrenched | ||
| • Backyard shacks | • Self-employed | ||
| • Commercial farms | • Students | ||
| • Mining settlements | • Communal, resettlement farmers | ||
| • Communal areas | |||
| 4 | • Officially approved | • Post-colonial high-density areas | • Owners |
| • Fully serviced | • Tenants | ||
| • Generous space provision | • Colonial mediumdensity areas | ||
| 5 | • Officially approved | • Medium-density areas | • Owners |
| • Fully serviced | • Tenants | ||
| • Generous space provision | • Low-density areas | ||
Causes
Systemic causes of homelessness in Zimbabwe are economic, demographic, political, sociocultural, and natural.
The national economic crisis is a major cause of homelessness. It has widened the affordability gap (the cheapest house now costs more than thirty times the annual minimum wage) and crippled the ability of housing delivery systems to improve supply. From a peak of some 25,000 units per annum in 1992, national housing production had by 2003 slumped to below 10,000 units per annum.
...
- Causes
- Cities
- Demography and Characteristics
- Health Issues
- History
- Housing
- Legal Issues, Advocacy, and Policy
- Lifestyle Issues
- Appendix 3: Directory of Street Newspapers
- Child Care
- Child Support
- Criminal Activity and Policing
- Encampments, Urban
- Libraries: Issues in Serving the Homeless
- Mobility
- Panhandling
- Parenting
- Prostitution
- Shelters
- Single-Room Occupancy Hotels
- Social Support
- Soup Kitchens
- Street Newspapers
- Survival Strategies
- Work on the Streets
- Organizations
- American Bar Association Commission on Homelessness and Poverty
- Association of Gospel Rescue Missions
- Corporation for Supportive Housing
- European Network for Housing Research
- FEANTSA
- Goodwill Industries International
- Homeless International
- International Network of Street Newspapers
- International Union of Tenants
- National Alliance to End Homelessness
- National Center on Family Homelessness
- National Coalition for the Homeless
- National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness
- Salvation Army
- UN-HABITAT
- Urban Institute
- Wilder Research Center
- Perceptions of Homelessness
- Appendix 1: Bibliography of Autobiographical and Fictional Accounts of Homelessness
- Appendix 2: Filmography of American Narrative and Documentary Films on Homelessness
- Autobiography and Memoir, Contemporary Homelessness
- Images of Homelessness in Contemporary Documentary Film
- Images of Homelessness in Narrative Film, History of
- Images of Homelessness in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century America
- Images of Homelessness in the Media
- Literature, Hobo and Tramp
- Photography
- Public Opinion
- Populations
- Research
- Service Systems and Settings
- “Housing First” Approach
- Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)
- Case Management
- Children, Education of
- Continuum of Care
- Family Separations and Reunifications
- Food Programs
- Foster Care
- Harm Reduction
- Health Care
- Homeless Assistance Services and Networks
- Housing, Transitional
- Interventions, Clinical
- Interventions, Housing
- Mental Health System
- Outreach
- Poorhouses
- Safe Havens
- Self-Help Housing
- Service Integration
- Shelters
- Single-Room Occupancy Hotels
- Soup Kitchens
- Work on the Streets
- Workhouses
- World Perspectives and Issues
- Australia
- Bangladesh
- Brazil
- Calcutta
- Canada
- Copenhagen
- Cuba
- Denmark
- Egypt
- France
- Germany
- Homelessness, International Perspectives on
- Housing and Homelessness in Developing Nations
- Indonesia
- Italy
- Japan
- London
- Montreal
- Mumbai (Bombay)
- Nairobi
- Netherlands
- Nigeria
- Paris
- Russia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sweden
- Sydney
- Tokyo
- Toronto
- United Kingdom
- United Kingdom, Rural
- Zimbabwe
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