It's back to the slums for Kibera residents

By Alex Kiprotich

Over a year ago, a rare excitement swept through Kibera. After years of false starts and promises, slum dwellers used to living in tiny shacks moved to apartments.

This was after the first phase of houses in the Government’s slum upgrading project was complete.

The initiative in collaboration with the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (UN-HABITAT) gave Kibera a new face.

Tenants with rent arrears were kicked out of the upgraded apartments for slum dwellers on Monday. [PHOTOS: STANDARD]

Fidelis Ntambo, who has lived in the slum for years, says he was happy when he was picked to be among beneficiaries.

"I was happy because never in my life had I thought I would live like other Kenyans – in a house not the shanties and the dehumanising flying toilets," he says.

But today he is a man in distress. He is among residents who were kicked out for failing to pay rent.

The initial fears that the new houses would become unaffordable to the slum residents has come to haunt the lucky lot who shed tears of joy when they left the shanties and kissed goodbye the flying toilets.

The reality sunk in this week as the administrators of the housing estate kicked out several tenants with rent arrears. Some were accused of flouting the code of conduct while in the new houses.

And Ntambo became the first casualty on Monday when caretakers arrived at his home and evicted him after a seven-day notice.

"They threw me out and all my belongings. I pleaded with them but they could hear none of it. Now, my family and I have nowhere to live," he said on phone.

All the tenants occupying the 632 houses are supposed to pay Sh1,000 monthly, which includes Sh500 for water and electricity, but many have not paid claiming the amount is beyond their reach.

Ntambo says he regrets leaving his former home for ‘Canaan turned Egypt’.

"I do not have a place to stay and all those others evicted are putting up with friends as they sort themselves out," he said.

One of the supervisors, who declined to be named though we established his name is Patrick, refused to let this writer into the compound for interviews with residents. He said the writer needed clearance from the Ministry of Housing.

Patrick, however, said they would kick out more families.

Cat and mouse games

"There are more and they will go. Those we have kicked out say they are happy to go back. They are in a better environment where they can brew chang’aa as they wish," he said.

But this does not seem to be an opinion all the evictees share. Some left their belongings around the area, a sign they would want to return.

"They were kicked out very early in the morning and they could not carry their things because they had nowhere to go," said a guard.

But the caretaker said it was not their business to know where the evictees would go.

"What we know they have to leave this compound. Where they go is not our business," Patrick said.

Asked if he knew the evictees’ former shanties in Soweto were destroyed, he said there was nothing he could do about it.

Tenants with arrears no longer stay in their houses for fear of the dreadful knock from those contracted to evict them. Residents leave very early in the morning and while away time at the shanties – safe distance where they can monitor the happenings in the estate. They say they are caught up in a difficult situation.

Some of them have already made plans to relocate their other family members just in case.

"It is an embarrassment. I wonder what brought me here in the first place, may be the feel-good factor at the time of relocation," said Dickson Omuyesu who has three months’ arrears.

Omuyesu swears if he knew things would end up this way, he would not have moved out of his shanty at Soweto East. He has already relocated five of his children as he engages in a game of hide and seek, with the caretakers.

"They are determined to remove us. At the end everybody will be out because most of us have arrears and I wonder whom they want to put here," he says, pointing to the blockhouses a stark contrast to the shanties just meters away.

He adds: "I now regret because anytime I will be evicted and I do not know where to go. Why did they bring us here anyway?"

He says given a chance he would move back to his former shanty, but unfortunately it is no more.

"At least tenants would agree with the landlords when things were really tight and we would pay in instalments," he says.

A tenant who identified herself only as Mama Otis for fear of being targeted for talking to the Press said she left her house early to avoid embarrassment of being thrown out and her belongings being destroyed.

"I saw my neighbour, a sickly woman who is HIV positive being kicked out at 6am by the eviction squad. I did not want to be humiliated," she said.

Most tenants believe the eviction is done so that the officials can bring in wealthy tenants. Some tenants especially staying at Block B were not slum dwellers.

Jamin Chiwiwi alleges that the officials have turned the tenants’ suffering into a cash cow.

"Officials are enriching themselves by bringing in rich individuals who pay more than the normal Sh3,000 for a full house with the extra going to them," said Chiwiwi.

But the caretaker refused to respond to the allegations.

"You can seek that information at Kenya Slum Upgrading Secretariat at the Ministry of Housing headquarters," he said.