After the 2004 tsunami, former squatters Fahira and Ramsy partnered with Habitat to acquire land and build a house.

Sri Lanka
Working with landless families in the wake of natural disaster

By Hiew Peng Wong

M. Fahira has an interesting way of describing her old house, a wooden shack with a mud floor. “Whenever it rains, the house goes under water.”

Flooding used to be a bane for 49-year-old Fahira and her family, who live in Samagiwatte, a low-income settlement in Galle town, on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka. The December 2004 tsunami only worsened her situation. When the storm slammed into the shores of Galle, the powerful waves forced water from the canal into town, inundating the village. Fahira’s house was waterlogged, and all her possessions were damaged.

Further complicating things was the fact that Fahira and her family were among 20 families illegally occupying land owned by the Housing Development Authority. According to Felix Rathnasekara, coordinator of the Habitat Resource Center in Galle, these families had been squatting on the land for five to 10 years, some even more than 15 years.

When the tsunami damaged the houses in Samagiwatte, Habitat helped those who owned land to rebuild their houses, but those occupying the public land had to wait. Some months later, Habitat approached the National Housing Development Authority to seek approval to build houses with squatter families. Thanks to a helpful official in the Galle district office, the matter was brought to the attention of higher authorities, and it was decided that the land would be regularized for the squatter families who had lived there for more than five years.

The negotiation was intense, says Rathnasekara. A process that would normally take a few years was expedited in three months, in part due to Habitat’s agreement to build houses with tsunami-affected people who did not receive government assistance.

Fahira is grateful. “Before Habitat came, I never had thought or hope of building a new house,” she says. Fahira and her husband, A.S. Ramsy, helped in the house construction by carrying water to the build site and assisting the masons and carpenters.

Before Habitat could start building the houses, Fahira, like the other affected families, had to acquire land. Each family paid a first installment of 10,000 rupees (US$93) to the National Housing Development Authority. Fahira will pay the remaining value of the land by monthly installment over a five-year period. The land cost ranges from 160,000 to 200,000 Sri Lanka rupees (US$1,480 to US$1,855). The families have to pay about 2,500 to 3,170 rupees (US$23 to US$29) month.

After moving into their Habitat house at the end of 2007, Fahira converted one of the two bedrooms into grocery store selling sundry goods such as noodles, cooking oil and soap. Daily revenue totals 100 to 200 rupees. Ramsy used to work as a fishmonger, but he helps her to run the store. Looking to the future, Fahira says she plans to build a grocery store separate the house.

According to Fahira, the community looks different now. The former shacks of the squatter families been replaced by decent and solid Habitat houses. “If anybody were to ask us how we got this house,” she says, “we will tell them all the good that Habitat done.”