The development of a low-income housing finance sector in South Africa: Have we finally found a way forward?

Since the 1994 democratic elections, the South African government has been intent on encouraging the country's financial sector to extend finance to low-income households as a means of delivering an acceptable standard of housing through its housing subsidy scheme. This paper examines the history of lending to low-income black households beginning in the late 1980s and describes the problems encountered by the banks from the early 1990s onward. It also demonstrates how intertwined the development of housing finance has been with the formulation of the country's housing policy. As a means of understanding the development of the sector, the following issues are considered: the effort to mobilize mortgage finance via the banks; the shift in focus toward the use of micro-finance for housing purposes via non-bank lenders; the competition that has arisen between the banks and non-bank lenders; the recent attempt by government to compel the banks to lend through community reinvestment-type legislation and the banks’ response through the establishment of a Financial Sector Charter negotiation process aimed at transforming the entire financial sector. The paper concludes by offering some judgments as to whether this recent attempt by government and the banks to break through the decade-old housing finance logjam will be successful.     

Promoting Bank Accounts to Low-Income Households: Implications for Social Work Practice

In the wake of the recent economic challenges, it is clear that social workers must be educated about the financial opportunities for low-income households. Encouraging low-income households to have a bank account at an insured depository institution, or become banked, is increasingly emphasized in policy and practice. Becoming banked offers the opportunity to avoid high-cost alternative financial services. Social workers can facilitate relationships between low-income households and the mainstream financial services industry to help families advance their long-term financial interest. Understanding the structure of all types of banks and credit unions is imperative. Implications for social work practice are explored.     

Augmented informality: South Africa's backyard dwellings as a by-product of formal housing policies

Insufficient and inadequate housing for the urban poor has a long history in South Africa, as in other African cities. Nearly one-fifth of urban households in South Africa reside in an informal dwelling. While most live in informal settlements, significant proportions have erected informal structures (essentially ‘shacks’) in the backyard of another property, a distinctly South African phenomenon. Backyard dwellings have historically been overlooked by housing policies that focus on upgrading and/or eradicating informal settlements. Previously, backyard dwellers were perceived as marginalised, living in appalling conditions and exploited by cavalier landlords. However, the post-apartheid provision of state-funded housing for the poor has altered the nature of backyard housing, creating a new class of cash-poor homeowners who are dependent on income from backyard dwellers' rent, thus ensuring a more equitable power pendulum between landlord and tenant. This paper uses research conducted in a low-income state-subsidised housing settlement in Cape Town to explore the new dimensions of informal backyard housing, both for landlords and tenants, as a consequence of South Africa's formal housing policies.     

Lay discourses of the rural and stated and revealed preferences for rural living. Some evidence of the existence of a rural idyll in the Netherlands

Dutch rural areas have changed into a post-modern countryside and have become marketable commodities. The demand for rural space and rural amenities has increased, with concomitant tensions on the rural housing market, tensions which are enhanced by the restrictive spatial policy in Dutch rural areas. The demand for rural residential environments appears to be large. This paper reports the results of our research into the preferences of urban households for living in a rural residential environment. These preferences will be linked with images and representations of the countryside. It is assumed that individual images of the countryside (whether idyllic or not) affect residential preferences and these preferences have, in turn, their effect on migration behaviour. Empirical evidence suggests that perceptions, preferences and behaviour pertaining to rural residential environments are indeed interrelated. The Dutch countryside commands a very positive image and the demand for residential environments with rural characteristics is considerable. Consequently, a rural idyll can be identified in The Netherlands.     

Achieving the Optimal Vaginal State: Using Vaginal Products and Study Gels in Uganda,Zimbabwe, and South Africa

Preferences and practices related to the vaginal condition have implications for the use of vaginal HIV prevention products. The authors used qualitative methods to explore narratives relating to the vaginal state amongst women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe who had previously participated in a biomedical HIV prevention trial. They investigated women's behaviors related to optimizing the vaginal state, experiences and perceptions of the gel's effect on the vaginal state and on penile-vaginal intercourse, women's narratives on male partner perceptions, and how preferences relating to the vaginal state may have interfered with gel use.     

Housing Preferences of Suburban Elderly in Minnesota

This article reports on a study of older people's interest in relocating to retirement housing and their preferences for various housing features. It is based on data from a 1984 survey of 908 households with at least one member over age 55 in Minnetonka, Minnesota, an affluent suburb of Minneapolis. The purpose was to determine what subgroups are most likely to be interested in relocating to elderly housing and what types of housing they prefer. Age, income, marital status, and gender were found to be significantly related to interest in relocation.     

Crisis of Natural Building Materials and Institutionalised Self-Help Housing: The Case of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

Traditional rural housing is largely based on the use of locally available natural resources as prime building materials, usually in a process of self-help building undertaken by the community. Such housing is well adapted to a natural environment with widely available resources, and supports people's direct involvement in the construction of their dwellings. However, the advent of a cash economy and current scarcity of natural resources has greatly affected the self-help building process. In rural Bangladesh, affluent households are shifting to manufactured materials and skilled builders, and the quality of housing of low-income households is declining. For the latter, self-help is the only option, and recognition of this fact and of the increasing decline in the quality of their housing has prompted institutional intervention. This paper discusses the Grameen Bank's rural housing programme in Bangladesh which provides loans for manufactured building components for low-income rural households to build houses on a self-help basis. A review of this programme indicates some of its strengths and shortcomings in the context of scarcity of natural building materials and widespread poverty.     

Excluding exceptions: Housing non-affordability and the oppression of environmental sustainability?

This paper explores the provision of homes for less wealthy households in rural England. By allowing ‘exceptions’ to UK planning law to provide low-income housing for local residents, the national government seeks to secure dwellings for the less wealthy and so sustain socially mixed rural villages. This paper explores how the production of homes through the exception policy is not conducive to the construction of many new houses. The particular emphasis in the paper is on how responsible agents are discouraged from being more active in erecting new village homes for low-income households. Empirically, the paper draws on documents, interviews and a social survey in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to investigate the process of delivering rural exception homes. It is concluded that, despite Government assertions that a socially mixed countryside is desirable, the decision-making criteria that dominate the worldviews of agents in social housing provision work against this outcome.     

Housing Costs in an Oil and Gas Boom Town: Issues for Low-Income Senior Women Living Alone

In resource-based towns that have historically been dominated by young workers and their families, seniors’ housing issues have received little attention by community leaders and senior policymakers. However, since the 1980s there has been a growing trend of older women living alone in Canadian rural and small town places. Although research on rural poverty focuses on small towns in decline, booming resource economies can also produce challenges for low-income senior women living alone due to higher housing costs and the retrenchment of health care and service supports. Because housing costs can consume a significant proportion of household income, low-income senior women living alone may not have the financial resources to cover expenses in a competitive housing market. Using a household survey, we explored this different dimension of the Canadian rural landscape by looking at housing costs for low-income senior women living alone in the booming oil and gas town of Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada. The authors findings indicate that low-income senior women living alone are incurring higher housing costs compared with other senior groups.     

Social housing estates and sustainable community development in South Korea

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics and problems of social housing estates in South Korea, and to explore sustainable community development issues. In order to examine the social housing situation, a survey of the three social housing communities in Seoul was conducted. The survey evidence demonstrates that there is a growing stigma against the poor and social exclusion. This kind of social bias is likely to escalate the construction of social housing estates, which the poor concentrates in. Residents recognized that mixing public and private housing would be an issue and problematic. Public housing was thought to have a negative impact on the neighborhood. It is important to examine why these kinds of social problems arise. Applying the concept of social sustainability to low-income communities in urban Korea requires mobilizing residents and their governments to strengthen all forms of community capital.     

Does public housing reduce housing cost burden among low-income families with children?

ABSTRACT

About half of all renter households and over three-quarters of very low-income households in the United States experience a housing cost burden, with higher rates among families with children. Public housing may be an important tool for reducing families’ housing cost burdens. The current study uses nearly four decades of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its Assisted Housing Database to explore the relationship between public housing and housing cost burden among children in low-income families. Results from fixed effects models suggest that public housing is associated with a greatly reduced risk of experiencing housing cost burden when housing assistance receipt is measured a year before housing cost burden. These findings highlight the importance of public housing for reducing low-income families’ housing cost burdens.     

Internship training in computer science: Exploring student satisfaction levels

The requirement of employability in the job market prompted universities to conduct internship training as part of their study plans. There is a need to train students on important academic and professional skills related to the workplace with an IT component. This article describes a statistical study that measures satisfaction levels among students in the faculty of Information Technology and Computer Science in Jordan. The objective of this study is to explore factors that influence student satisfaction with regards to enrolling in an internship training program. The study was conducted to gather student perceptions, opinions, preferences and satisfaction levels related to the program. Data were collected via a mixed method survey (surveys and interviews) from student-respondents. The survey collects demographic and background information from students, including their perception of faculty performance in the training poised to prepare them for the job market. Findings from this study show that students expect internship training to improve their professional and personal skills as well as to increase their workplace-related satisfaction. It is concluded that improving the internship training is crucial among the students as it is expected to enrich their experiences, knowledge and skills in the personal and professional life. It is also expected to increase their level of confidence when it comes to exploring their future job opportunities in the Jordanian market.     

Child Sexual Abuse Workers’ Emotional Experiences of Working Therapeutically in the Western Cape, South Africa

South African child sexual abuse workers active in low-income communities bear witness to stories of sexual and physical abuse, neglect, pervasive deprivation, and violence. North American, British, and European workers’ emotional experiences have been captured in the literature, and a gap remains to be filled by those of their South African colleagues. This research aims to focus on the emotional experiences of social workers who engage therapeutically with sexually abused children in the Helderberg basin of the Western Cape, and resonate in some way with readers working in situations of poverty and trauma in other parts of the world. This study employed an explorative inductive research method, and followed a critical realist and contextual constructionist approach. Multiple-case study data collection took place by means of semi-structured interviews with social workers who engage therapeutically with sexually abused children. Data were examined by means of thematic analysis, and psychoanalytic theory was employed to analyse defences that surfaced during interviews. There were similarities in emotional experiences between South African participants and their abovementioned counterparts. The research also identified salient features of working with child sexual abuse in South Africa. The emotional experiences of doing such work, coupled with participants’ ways of managing sexually abused children’s material, gave rise to possible vicarious traumatisation symptoms and allowed for a psychoanalytic understanding to be put forward. The research also reports on useful measures that might enable individuals to continue interventions. To enable ongoing effective therapeutic engagement, social workers should have access to opportunities for acknowledging countertransferences and processing dynamic material defended against. The research contributes to knowledge of working in South Africa by exploring the emotional experiences of those who help sexually abused children daily, and by investigating the psychological impact prolonged therapeutic engagement has on workers active in Western Cape low-income communities.     

构建中小企业虚拟融资平台研究

在信贷市场中,信息不对称严重地制约着中小企业的融资供给,信贷成本高企和信贷额度偏低引起的风险管理机制与激励机制不相容降低了银行对中小企业信贷的积极性。随着大数据时代的到来和互联网金融的蓬勃发展,能够真实反映企业经营状况的包括信息流、物流、资金流等在内的一系列信息应得到有效利用。构建中小企业虚拟融资平台模式,能够突破传统信贷对企业经营结果的审查定性,而转移到对企业经营过程的监督定性上,有利于彻底解决中小企业融资难问题。在一定程度上,通过对企业历史经营数据和现时经营信息的搜集与量化定性,不仅能够扭转资金供求双方间的信息不对称,也能通过企业沉淀信息降低银行间信息搜集成本。     

Shelter Poverty and the Elderly

The conventional percent-of-income standard of housing affordability is challenged as arbitrary and logically inconsistent. An alternative, sliding scale of affordability is conceptualized; households paying more than they can afford on this standard are called "shelter poor." The shelter-pover scale is operationalized for elderly households of one person an two or more persons and applied to data from the 1985 American Housing Survey. It is found that 31% of all elderly households were shelter poor in 1985, compared with 45% paying 25% or more of their incomes for housing. The shelter-poverty approach suggests that the housing affordability problem is less severe among middle-income elders than the conventional standard implies, but more severe among low-income elderly. Some of the policy implications of the findings are briefly sketched, in terms of income supports as well as housing provision.     

Living in Affordable Housing and Duration of Tenure: Do Older Adults Stay in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Projects as They Age?

Compliance data for the low-income housing tax credit program in Ohio was examined to identify factors associated with affordable housing tenure. Residents aged 55 and older reported a median tenure duration of 2.7 years. Cox regression was used to explore time until exiting housing, controlling for demographic factors, and the date the housing project was placed into service. Results suggest that duration of tenure was predicted by age and race. Modifications to the state Qualified Allocation Plan guiding development under the low-income housing tax credit program should be considered to promote aging in place in affordable housing. Reasons for exiting and subsequent housing choice should be explored.     

Public Perceptions,Beliefs and Experiences of Fostering and Adoption: A National Qualitative Study in South Africa

In South Africa, rates of adoption remain low while the number of fostered children continually rises. Little is known about the public perceptions, beliefs and experiences that inform decisions to either foster or adopt in South Africa. This qualitative research explored these issues among a national sample of childless adults, biological parents, kin and non‐kin fostering parents and prospective and successful adopters. Fostering is driven predominantly by access to subsidies but is also informed by socio‐cultural beliefs. Low adoption rates are influenced by an absence of subsidies, poor access to quality adoptive services and a lack of information about adoption.     

Determinants of Bias Perceptions in South Africa: The Case of A Highly Unequal Society

While objective class dynamics have received much attention in South Africa, less is known about the subjective social positions individuals place themselves in. For example, in a highly unequal society like South Africa, some individuals would overestimate (inflate) or underestimate (deflate) their social position compared to their objective class position. This paper aims to provide further information on status inconsistency in South Africa by assessing some of the socioeconomic determinants of bias perceptions. Using International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data and a multinomial probit model, the results show that education and race play a significant role in influencing the biased perceptions of individuals in South Africa. For example, individuals with higher education levels have a stronger tendency to deflate their social position, while Coloreds, Indians/Asians, and whites tend to inflate their social positions more than Africans. The results indicate the vital role of race and education in determining status inconsistencies in a society that is still suffering from high levels of racial and education inequality due to the lingering legacy of apartheid. The results provide a better understanding to policymakers and government on the dynamics behind social status perceptions in South Africa.     

Aboriginal Women's Perceptions and Experiences of a Family Violence Transitional Accommodation Service

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study of Aboriginal women's perceptions and experiences of a transitional housing program in South Australia that was established to assist long-term homelessness and family violence. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and service outcomes for Aboriginal women and their children and to identify both facilitators and barriers to the effective operation of the program. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 13 Aboriginal women and thematic analysis was used to report their collective stories. The women's stories showed individualised, flexible, and open-ended support as well as practical outcomes of stable, safe housing for themselves and their children were particularly valued. The women reported that these features of the program augmented feelings of strengthened confidence and self-efficacy. The authors argue the domestic and family violence sector has the opportunity to learn from the perceptions and experiences of Aboriginal women, particularly allowing time and commitment to working long-term with families.