One of the small joys that has kept me sane through this pandemic is our new dog, Fanis. Fanis is from Santorini and we adopted him after meeting him in the streets there in our trip in January 2019.
He’s a sweet dog who used to be frightened of everything and it has been a delight to see how he’s changed and how he has become more sure and comfortable of his surroundings. There is a strong and very instinctive bond between man and his best friend—much as there is a strong bond between us and our own homes.
One of the small joys that has kept me sane through this pandemic is our new dog, Fanis. Fanis is from Santorini and we adopted him after meeting him in the streets there in our trip in January 2019.
He’s a sweet dog who used to be frightened of everything and it has been a delight to see how he’s changed and how he has become more sure and comfortable of his surroundings.There is a strong and very instinctive bond between man and his best friend—much as there is a strong bond between us and our own homes.
Shelter is one of the most basic needs of our species even before we first evolved into modern humans. It is the first thing we look for wherever we travel or move to. Shelter is a basic human right.
Housing crisis
Why is it then that after 200,000 years of human evolution, 10 millennia after we first built our shelter, after building cities and wonders of technology, we are still unable to grasp this most basic challenge? This housing crisis we are facing, which is much more dire than anything else, is the single greatest sin of our urban societies.
The current solution of relocating and expelling our problems outside of the metropolis is a disgraceful failure of planning and governance.
We have generations of homeless people on our streets. We have multiple generations being born and growing up in informal settlements without proper sanitation, and we are further promoting for generations of our people to accept a lifestyle that forces them into horrendous 4-hour daily commutes that rob them of time and sap them of vitality.
Our housing crisis is at the root of so many of our urban ills. The uncontrollable spread of this pandemic in our vulnerable communities, our immense transportation crisis, the endemic malaise of our citizenry, the pervasive corruption at all levels, and the low productivity of our labor force—they are all, in one way or another, linked to housing. Every sector of our community is affected by this crisis.
There are no simple answers to the housing problem.
Yet to allow it to fester and grow without redress is itself a crime to the next generation. Shelter is the most basic and primary issue that every architect learns about. We have learned that housing is not an architectural problem, nor is it a financial or spatial one. It is one borne out of weak political will and weaker cities.
Much of our housing policy in Metro Manila is centered around relocating and uprooting our own citizens. This is a problem not just for the people we relocate but for everyone else as well. Every city and society will always need the people who provide the labor and essential services that allow it to function.
