HUMAN DIMENSION IN LOW INCOME SETTLEMENTS DEVELOPMENT

The main reason of The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed in the general session of the UN in 2000 was to respond to the alarming situation of poverty experienced by a large number of people all over the world, from developing countries to developed countries seen after the 2007-2008 financial crisis that not yet over, and no effective solution has yet to be found for the US and EU. Japan is still struggling very hard to revive their slumbering economy with no solution in sight. In overcoming poverty problem, simple financial intervention such as special grant given to the poor by the Indonesian government was not a solution rather to appease people from political sentiment cause by economic and financial problem after a certain political decision was made, such as increasing the price of vehicle fuel. Poverty can effectively be resolve if the poor can be freed from their burden, especially if the burden was caused by inability of government to fulfill their responsibility and duty as given by the constitution and laws. Next as important is the fact that people were given a wide possibility to achieve their live time goals of what they wanted to be. As most part of a city consist of housing and human settlements, it is extremely important to put the human dimension as focus for housing and human settlements development. This paper will draw and learn the lessons from the vast experience in rebuilding housing and human settlements after the mega disaster in Aceh and Nias (late 2004) as well as what the city government has done in lowering the number of its citizens categorized as the poor. If Vitruvius postulates that architecture consist or aimed mainly in the excellence of the dimension of beauty, strength and function, than it is also important to include the human aspect as the fourth dimension. Housing and human settlements development is not a self standing endeavor but it is part of a wider intervention needed to resolve the poverty issues of people that has to struggle to make ends meet for their family.


INTRODUCTION
Indonesia most likely will not belong to developing countries that successfully managed to achieve the goals as set by the MDGs for many reasons.However, some towns and cities in Indonesia might achieve the MDGs sooner that it was set for 2015, one of them is Surabaya.It is not only important to show statistically the achievement of the MDGs by Surabaya, but it should account and explained in clear detail how it was achieved and in what condition.This relate closely to the long experience in implementing the Kampung Improvement Programme or KIP.This scheme consist more settlement elements than in the MGDs and based on the respective inhabitants of the kampung to do development by, with and for the people.The condition of the kampungs in Indonesia will determine the quality of the city and the citizens.
In 1924 for the first time kampoeng verbetering programme was initiated and implemented in Surabaya together with Semarang as local government intervention in the betterment effort of settlements of indigenous people that are mostly living in kampungs.Basically Surabaya faced the same problem, but city government officials were far from easily in giving up to do what is to them the right thing that should be done.Local inhabitants of the targeted kampungs were invited and accepted to implement the programme in term of providing free of charge sweat equity (gotong royong) merged with the responsibility of the city government in ensuring that the needed resources is indeed available.The Second World War as expected has stopped all kinds of development activities.In late August 1950 a congress on Healthy Housing was organized in Jakarta, no decision was made to continue the improvements of kampungs, later implemented in more cities and towns after it was initiated in Surabaya and Semarang.

Kampung Improvement Program (KIP)
After the changed of government in 1965, city governments of Jakarta and Surabaya re-introduced and implement the KIP (late sixties).City government of Jakarta have more resources (partly from gambling licenses) to implement the KIP compare to Surabaya.Therefore the KIP in Jakarta was implemented comprehensively, with public work approach and government now best attitude.At the same time, city government of Surabaya has very little resources they have to set aside to do as it was done in Jakarta, instead it has it rely on the assistance and participation of local inhabitants of the kampung to install the improvement kampung elements provided freely by the city government, much the same as it was done before the last World War.Only this time, the KIP was re-implemented with very different goals and reasons behind.
The Dutch colonial government implemented the KIP after the first World War was to ease the strong criticism voiced by opposition political parties in the Dutch Parliament as part of the new movement of ethische politiek, as a different foundation, the moral (or ethical) calling (to the Netherlands) for a humane approach towards the people in the colonies.It has a hidden agenda to ensure better health for the inhabitants in the kampungs as many middle class up housing are located as shell to the kampungs.Persons working in the Dutch households of in the formal sector lived mostly in the kampungs.The KIP was initially re-introduced to bring development closer and to the very front door of the low-income people's housing in kampungs.
The colonial KIP was very minimal, take care the sanitation aspects (public taps, drainage and footpath as cover of the drain) the present KIP deals many more of the kampungs aspects (social, economic as well as environmental) making it a real housing programme.KIP produced many standard housing (desired) from undesired former sub-standard kampung housing.The KIP also doing better waste collection system, to the provision of land rights and building local traditional markets, health clinics, schools and greening the environment.Since 1979 KIP was implemented in all cities and towns through out Indonesia.International agencies and government sincerely supported the effort to include UN agencies from UNICEF, UNCHS to UNEP, etc.
The World Bank assisted the implementation of KIP in Surabaya after Jakarta was served two years earlier.Now many local governments continue to implement KIP in much simpler model, in Surabaya the KIP has entered into the third generation.The first generation  was mainly stressed mainly in the improvement of settlement infrastructure.The second generation called Comprehensive KIP (C-KIP 1998(C-KIP -2005) ) emphasizes community development and organization aspects.Betterment of infrastructure was put behind setting up of the development of community organization and resource management (micro-credit).In the third generation, KIP is now known as prominent kampung programme, the focus of the intervention is on human resource development, both social and economics, locally known as kampung unggulan.This latest KIP model is closely related to other city programmes poverty elevation schemes.
If MDGs is closely scrutinized, than human dimension is measured as simple as a biological need to survive.The real live scenario is much more complex and many of the challenges cannot (and should not) be faced individually.It is also not a collective effort as such, but it should be dealt with from many directions and including many aspects.The human dimension of housing and settlement development is far from just in the provision of shelter or meeting the adequacy standard.Human dimension is part of ensuring that every human being can and will managed to face the multidimensional problem threatening the livelihood of all.It is important that stakeholders in housing and human settlements development work closely together and rid the costly conflict due to greet and ignoring the treat of the Darwin Law of being selected by nature or not.It has less to do with availability of fund or technology, but more on the self-quality of the individual.
Every year Fortune published Fortune 500 on the largest US companies and Global 500 for world companies.Lately Wal-Mart Stores rank number ONE (since the last five years in a row) in both 500 series.In the US Wal-Mart Store was followed by Exxon Mobil and Chevron, both mega oil companies.In Global 500 Wal-Mart still ranked number one followed by Shell and Exxon.For the last ten year, Wal-Mart rank second only three times among US companies.The question is why and how did Wal-Mart managed to be at the top beating giants such as Exxon, Shell, BP, General Electric etc. Without having big capital, embracing state of the art technology, nor supported by the best brain available?The answered might be that ingenuity as the essence of humanity is the main reason for Wal-Mart Store's success compare to big companies that has to rely more on non-human capital and sometimes cheating as well.With technology added to humanity, the success is tremendous as proven by many "i"s product of Apple.Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones this year (7/2011), up 142 percent from the previous year.About 80% -90% of urban housing stock in Indonesia consists of self-built housing by their respective owner-occupier without any form of support, neither from the formal nor public sector.According to the 2010 census the population of Indonesia reached to 237.556.363persons.If the household size is 4, the total housing stock reached to almost 60 million units and about 50 million were built by the owneroccupier themselves.Sir Winston Churchill might have said: that never in history has so many done so much with only so little.Similar to the Wal-Mart story, the strength of the housing by people lies in the high quality of humanity.This is the hiding fourth dimension of housing that need to be revealed critically in this paper.
As housing are dualistic processes, of the house (tangible) and the activities of the occupiers (intangible).The aspect of humanity developed along dual intertwined ways, the development of the house through actual building processes over time and how the occupants utilize it to improve their human quality in a dynamic ways.In housing, humanity encompasses the elements of choosing the best possible material, how to construct and gaining legality of the result from the community and the government.Generating and controlling building resources needed to further develop the house as a process is part of human ingenuity of the housing process by people with low-income capacity.The house will further facilitates the development of the humanity aspect of the people living in the house from improving the productivity and human resources, especially to the younger occupants, to building network and enlarging the awareness to what is happening in and outside their living capsule through the ever improving communication media available.
The housing rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh andNias (2004-2009) was conducted in two distinct different phases, the rapid response phase and the recapitalization phase.In both phases, the vast and long previous experience in doing housing for the low-income people in urban areas proved important and limited at the same time as conceptual guidance needed to meet the extreme difficulties and challenges faced in the field after the mega disaster back in 2004/2005 in Aceh and Nias.No existing reference is available that can meet the need in what to do in overcoming the reconstruction and rehabilitation by international communities that came to help.By the end of the intervention period (mid 2009) no less than 6000 houses were built through the support (grant) from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the rehabilitation and reconstruction effort.The main aim behind the physical intervention was to rebuild the shattered communities in a relative shortest time possible, mostly in Aceh where settlements were totally wiped out from the face of the earth.In Nias, the added problem includes the need to enhance of the unique one and only traditional architecture of southern Nias.
The conventional approach in re-building of housing and human settlements after a disaster, consist of three-dimensional basic concept, the form (and function), the aesthetics (feeling of satisfaction), and the urgent need (in shortest time possible).People in anthropological sense were never involved and included, as part of the cultural and social needs in the formulation of the concept.Many big national and international assisting agencies that came to assist the rebuilding of infrastructure and settlements in Aceh and Nias, mostly avoid the people (victims) as not to complicate their work, including those initiated by government agencies.If people is the focus of the intervention as mentioned in the existing official papers, apparently "another" dimension is badly needed to ensure that intervention in housing and human settlements can go beyond the conventional methods of planning housing and human settlements where people matter.
Humanity in present day has wider definition and understanding and was already recognized when the Greek developed their philosophical ideas.The teaching of Confucius is mainly based on the harmony of human and nature.Humanity has become a hot international issue since it was recognized by world community as a basic human right when forming the UN (December of 10, 1948).Adequate and healthy housing is recognized by the Indonesia Constitution (article 28H) as human right of every Indonesian.Before discussing what humanity related to the development of housing and human settlements that this paper is all about, the following case illustrates the happening of humanity in real world.
Sometimes ago a young man met a beautiful sales girl in a prominent shopping centre.To cut the story short, they decide to marry.The parents of the boy cannot accept their daughter in-law to be a she lived with her widowed mother in a house occupying a marginal land next to the railroad track.They kept the wedding party simple and gave the fund wedding party as capital for the young couple.They rent a house in a kampung and started a small building material shop.He met a guy that offer to be his companion as he know where to buy material and to whom they should sell.Although the shop seemingly flourished, one day he has to face bid payment to building material producers although he claimed that he has paid all his purchases.His companion suddenly vanishes in thin air.He was jailed in few months and after released he stayed in the hut of his mother-in-law.Not too long afterwards, he and his wife work hard and managed not only to buy a simple house in the kampung, but he also rid his mother-in-law of the danger being evicted.There are many similar stories of how simple housing is not so simple in fostering the growth of human quality if supported by the city.
The city government put very high priority for the poor to as soon as possible rid themselves and the family from every kind of poverty.First that education and basic health care are provided free of charge to all citizens of Surabaya.For the poor, they will also receive books and uniform as well as supplement food from the school kitchen.When a poor woman is positively pregnant, she will immediately receive prenatal care from the nearby health clinic and the child will be cared for free from the same clinic until at least to year three to six of age.Therefore every poor in Surabaya can rid their worry of not being able to send their children to school and also not afraid not being able to see the doctor and buy the needed medicine if they are ill.Thereby very soon the human quality of the coming generation will be much better than their parents.
As part of the poverty elevation programme, improving the economic people in the received high priority.The city government will not train them in new skill, rather prevailing skill and home based economy is being improved by the city government through training, better access to resources and provision of basic equipment.There are now many kampungs with special commodity and services such as kampung dynamo to repair all kind of electric dynamos, batik producers using mainly mangrove product, rice cooked in banana leaves, shoe and bag making to recycling of waste in many kampungs.Of course the kampung quality is improved in line with the improvement of the city.Kampung people have the luxury to choose which city park to visit as every year the city government built al least two to three new urban parks with no two park has the same theme.
To ensure that the product from kampungs can reach the main stream of customers, city government leased places in the prominent mall where products from the kampungs can be sold free from any rent.Also kampung product sold in traditional markets can compete to modern mini market, annually traditional market festival is held to choose the best managed and innovative traditional markets to encourage traditional market manager to put their market normally dirty and chaotic to be clean and tidy.Traditional market reform is still a long way to go, but kampung people that depend on their purchase or selling their product in the traditional market can work parallel with the modern market without relying on legal intervention such as limited new licenses or reducing existing number by not renewing their license when it expired.In the last Moslem Holiday of Eid, prices is stable that people still have money left after the holiday is over.
The above simple illustrations lead us to arrive and formulate the definition for human dimension in housing and settlement.Some questions need first to be raised such as is humanity a product or process of human act that is distinct or unique to the conventional wisdom?Is humanity a new phenomenon or it is there but unrecognized?Humanities focus on the understanding of meaning, purpose, and goals of human action in their appreciation to human historical and social achievements.Humanity is also about freedom and liberty to be oneself, to be different (if needed) to the others without restriction or discrimination by others, to include government.Can housing and human settlements then provide the condition needed in which the energy of humanity be generated and materialize into an act that allow a human being to be her or himself?The African saying that said A Human Being is a Human Being if he or she can make others to be Human Being.To be a Human Being only is true if she or he has the humanity dimension.
Humanity is less a product, but more as an upwards dynamic and spiraling process of human action in pursing their dream beyond and most of the time out of the conventional way of doing action of living.It depend less on external as well as internal material and immaterial support, and rely more on personal ingenuity.It is also a self-centered orientation in building the dream.Person with high humanity quality knows well what she or he intends to be and not afraid to do so although others think that it is a crazy dream.High education does not guarantee of having good humanity.Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Steve Job of Apple never needed a university degree, as they never finished it, except Bill Gates that does get his degree after he is the number one richest person globally.Thus no one is exempted to develop their humanity with quality in ingenuity, care for others as well as to the nature.They can do it everywhere, anywhere and anytime, a borderless opportunity for all.It is not a by-product of culture, but a (new) culture in itself.

Figure 1. Nias House
There exist two distinct qualities of humanity based housing and human settlement development using the experience in rebuilding housing and human settlements in Aceh and Nias as reference (Figure 1 and 2).The first was the people's control and involvement in developing the rebuilding process.The second was Settlements in Aceh was totally demolished and wiped out from the surface of coastal Aceh.The inhabitants that managed to save themselves were scattered to many places to further attend to their survival.The planning of their initial villages and design of the new houses were implement with total control of the respective communities.In the rebuilding process, people were encouraged to take full control of the work implemented in their original housing site and make the needed alteration as they see it important.

CONCLUSIONS
It can be summarized that the human dimension in low-income housing development centered on the human quality or humanity of the people living in the house.It started with who and what she or he is or wanted to be, building the art and capacity to communicate, setting common ground to synergized potential and possibilities, reconditioning what has been achieved for what further development will be taken and as reference to wider audience, and to building the culture and strengthening their personal believe in themselves.In short, the fourth dimension in housing and human settlement is a strength that enable people to materialize the house to what they envisioned and using it to achieved what they intended to be.Humanity is not terminal and living like the water in a river, flowing to a predestined direction (the dream), regardless of what obstacle is encountered and endured along the journey.Humanity is different to humanism (metaphysic) as it is being used to achieve a distinct goal or dream.