Resources

This issue of the newsletter of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights focuses on how poor people deal with eviction. It contains articles from all over Asia providing examples of how people have responded to eviction or threat of eviction. The articles look at the causes of eviction and ways to prevent it. It has special sections focussing especially on the situation in from India, Philippines, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan, Cambodia, South Africa, Japan, and Zimbabwe. Other themes include street vendors and eviction, eviction and law, local law and practice, and backup for communities under threat of evictions. Some of the main features focus on how to prevent eviction with information, alternative planning and collective action, including the examples of the Philippines Homeless People's Federation that survey vulnerable communities living in environmentally dangerous areas and use their information to negotiation resettlement or upgrading options with local governments; the struggle of a coalition of NGOs, community organisations, professionals and civic groups in Karachi, Pakistan, to stop the Lyari Expressway that would cause the city's largest ever evictions of poor communities; and the organisation of footpath dwellers in Mumbai, India, to defend their rights.