The Safer Places: Resilient Institutions and Neighbourhoods Together (SPRINT) project aims to institutionalise area-based violence prevention interventions across government policies, programmes and practices. Resource Note 3 unpacks the root causes of crime and violence in South Africa. It utilises the socio-ecological model to explain the various risk and/or protective factors that occur at various levels of a person’s life that can increase or reduce their vulnerability to experiencing or perpetuating crime and/or violence.

The Safer Places: Resilient Institutions and Neighbourhoods Together (SPRINT) project aims to institutionalise area-based violence prevention interventions across government policies, programmes and practices. Resource Note 4 explains that area-based violence prevention interventions (ABPVI) combine spatial, social and institutional interventions aimed at reducing or removing factors that contribute to an environment of risk and vulnerability to crime and violence. It includes key ingredients for implementing ABVPI and examples of what ABVPI may include.

Isandla Institute, supported by a number of civil society partners, has produced a joint civil society submission, which addresses four key areas of intervention which we believe start to address some of the significant challenges facing the backyard housing market. These key areas include access to basic services for backyard residents living on both public and private land; tenure (in)security for both landlords and backyard residents; enabling the right to self-build as an integral part of the right of access to housing; and, the importance of promoting safe neighbourhoods through an area-based violence prevention approach.

Isandla Institute, supported by a number of civil society partners, has produced a joint civil society submission, which addresses four key areas of intervention which we believe start to address some of the significant challenges facing the backyard housing market. These key areas include access to basic services for backyard residents living on both public and private land; tenure (in)security for both landlords and backyard residents; enabling the right to self-build as an integral part of the right of access to housing; and, the importance of promoting safe neighbourhoods through an area-based violence prevention approach. For more details, see the civil society submission here and an animation that distils the main arguments.

Amid the growing discourse around self-build, especially in the context of fiscal constraints and the de-prioritisation of new large-scale public housing projects, there is an opportunity for self-build to be enabled and supported through Housing Support Centres, to tap into latent willingness and agency of communities for incremental top-structure consolidation. Housing Support Centres can be an important element in shifting the housing focus beyond just site-and-service and towards housing consolidation in both informal settlements and in established neighbourhoods where backyard housing is providing/can provide affordable housing for rent. Based on the Enhanced People’s Housing Process (EPHP) as a local self-build precedent, and other examples of current and proposed models for support centres, both locally and in other global South locations (Brazil and India), Isandla Institute has proposed a municipal-led Housing Support Centre model that could provide a variety of possible housing support needs across different housing/settlement typologies, in partnership with provinces, NGOs, the private sector, and academic institutions.

Amid the growing discourse around self-build, especially in the context of fiscal constraints and the de-prioritisation of new large-scale public housing projects, there is an opportunity for self-build to be enabled and supported through Housing Support Centres, to tap into latent willingness and agency of communities for incremental top-structure consolidation. Based on the Enhanced People’s Housing Process (EPHP) as a local self-build precedent, and other examples of current and proposed models for support centres, both locally and in other global South locations (Brazil and India), Isandla Institute has proposed a municipal-led Housing Support Centre model that could provide a variety of possible housing support needs across different housing/settlement typologies, in partnership with provinces, NGOs, the private sector, and academic institutions. This proposition paper is distilled from a research paper, Enabling the right to build through Housing Support Centres, 2022 (see here)

Amid the growing discourse around self-build, especially in the context of fiscal constraints and the de-prioritisation of new large-scale public housing projects, there is an opportunity for self-build to be enabled and supported through Housing Support Centres, to tap into latent willingness and agency of communities for incremental top-structure consolidation. Based on the Enhanced People’s Housing Process (EPHP) as a local self-build precedent, and other examples of current and proposed models for support centres, both locally and in other global South locations (Brazil and India), Isandla Institute has proposed a municipal-led Housing Support Centre model that could provide a variety of possible housing support needs across different housing/settlement typologies, in partnership with provinces, NGOs, the private sector, and academic institutions. For more details, see an animation and proposition paper here, which are distilled from a  longer research paper (see here)