| An estimated 350,000 families, close to 2 million people, have paid for a plot of urban land and built a house, but never received legal title so that their own homes were not a secure asset. They cannot pass property on to their children or sell it or use it as capital for other investments. In addition, developers and government agencies failed to deliver on promises of needed community improvements like roads, schools, water and green spaces.
While COFOA is organizing families through the RENACER Campaign to win legal titles worth an estimated one billion dollars, teams of leaders in each of these developments (“lotifications”) are conducting face-to-face and house meetings and convening community assemblies where people vote to prioritize work on other issue critical to their families. Access to potable water rises to the top in most communities, joined with the need for public improvements like roads, sewer systems, and health clinics.
Even as Michele Sol, the Minister of Housing is asking local mayors to do a census of families who need their property titles registered, COFOA leaders are approaching those same mayors with their lists of families and asking their support for public investments for water and other improvements. COFOA leaders are determined to press on until their needs are heard at all levels of government. Click here to learn more about the history of these “illegal developments” |
