Urban Poor Associates

Urban Poor Associates (UPA) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) registered with the Philippine government. It was established in 1992. Since then it has educated over 285,000 families in housing rights matters and assisted 510 communities in eviction crises. It has helped nearly 51,000 families, to relocate in-city, or at least remain as they were. It has been responsible for almost 600 stories that appeared in the Manila dailies, 150 TV stories, and 850 radio interviews.

It is based at 25-A Mabuhay Street, Brgy. Central, 1100 Quezon City, Philippines.

Goals

*No one shall be hungry or live in squalor unfit for human beings.
*All families shall have clean inexpensive water, sanitation, drainage, security of tenure and a decent house. Evictions will be a thing of the past.
*All will have access to health care, good schools and employment.
*No one shall feel powerless or left out.
*Families will help one another; community organizations will be vigorous; and urban poor people as a group will work for the common good.
*Those who have less in life shall have more in joy and solidarity.
*Religion will help educate and motivate people to work together for change.

Activities

*It educates poor people about their housing rights.
*It organizes people being evicted forcibly and illegally to resist in non-violent ways, for example, by going to court, seeking the help of prominent people, including church leaders, going in delegations to the mayor, using the media, or getting help in other ways.
*Once demolitions are stopped, UPA works to find permanent land and housing solutions for poor families, such as, in-city relocation and on-site upgrading.
*UPA engages in research and advocacy work. It monitors evictions and violations of the housing laws and produces annual reports, such as a demolition monitor. It researches such matters as the effects of evictions on women and children and on the economic life of the evicted families.
*It has a full-time media person to make sure poor people’s matters are covered in the papers and on radio and TV. UPA has a one-hour award winning program each week on Radio Veritas for this purpose.
*UPA heads a poor people’s water campaign that helps very poor communities get inexpensive, piped water. This saves families P100-200 a month since without piped water, they pay two to three times the legal rate to itinerant water vendors or better-off neighbors.
*UPA works with the priests of St. Joseph’s Vicariate, Quezon City to discover how urban parishes can serve their urban poor parishioners. It is also beginning similar work with the priests of the Vicariate of Sto. Niño in downtown Manila.
*UPA works very closely with LOCOA, an Asian Community Organization network, and Eviction Watch, an Asia-wide anti-eviction service.
*UPA has initiated the St. Thomas More Law Center.
*UPA operates throughout the Philippines. It has established Quick Reaction Teams in Mindanao, Bicol and the Visayas to educate the poor about housing rights and eviction and to help them cope with eviction problems. It coordinates the teams and provides staff development sessions.

ome events

*1992 - UPA made the first ever report on demolitions in Metro Manila. It found about 100,000 people were evicted every year during the administration of President Corazon Aquino (1986-1992). This figure has remained fairly constant since. Over twenty people were killed and hundreds injured in violent evictions during those early years. As a result UPA formed its eviction crisis intervention work.
*1993 - Violence in evictions reached new heights during the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos. It began with urban poor people driven by tear gas and riot police from the Smokey Mountain landfill. One man was killed. Distant relocation began again under Ramos. There had been no relocation sites opened under President Aquino.
*1994 - Publication of "Ano ang Gagawin Kung May Demolisyon?" Over 15,000 copies have been distributed. It is a manual helping poor people deal with eviction.
*1995 - UPA sent a team of housing experts to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva to contest the government’s housing report. The Committee wrote a strong letter to the Philippine government urging it to do better in matters of eviction and relocation, and to concentrate on slum upgrading rather than expensive housing.
*1997 - UPA invited an old friend, the actor Martin Sheen, to visit Manila and head a campaign called "A More Humane City." Sheen visited urban poor areas, appeared on the major TV talk shows, met NGOs and government officials. He urged the people to remember, "A people united can never be defeated."
*2000 - UPA began work on the Pasig River in collaboration with the government and Asian Development Bank (ADB). UPA works in several river communities including Parola, Baseco and Pineda.
*2001 - UPA’s radio program “Buhay Maralita” had the greatest number of listeners in its Saturday timeslot. It was nominated for a Catholic Mass Media Award, the most prestigious award in the field.
*2002 - UPA took a leading role in advocating for the government land proclamation program. It has also done research on the proclamations.
*2003 - UPA works to bring land tenure security to 19,000 urban poor families in the University of the Philippines.
*2004 - UPA has arranged a series of consultations among Quezon City officials, the University of the Philippines and the 19,000 urban poor families living on the campus which hopefully will lead to land tenure security for the poor and the best educational use of the campus for the University.
*2005 - UPA along with Community Organizers of the Philippine Enterprise and CO Multiversity have helped form the April 30 Working Group, a coalition of 45 urban poor group in Metro Manila who work on land tenure security, evictions, basic services, proclamations, and other matters for the poor. UPA with Task Force on Housing Rights along the Railways conducted surveys and took part in congressional hearing regarding North and South Rail. The Economic and Social Rights Legal Advocacy Center, SALIGAN, St. Thomas More Law Center filed test cases in court against violators of Section 28 of UDHA.

There are still Problems?The landless urban poor in Metro Manila number close to 5 million men, women and children (about 800,000 families). Recent studies show average family income per month in the poorer slums is about P6,500.00.The poor suffer greatly from inflation. In the first four months of 2005 prices of basic foods of the poor rose by 25%-30%. There are indications that the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) of children under five years of age is rising. The IMR is held to be the best indicator of community overall well-being. Jobs are harder to find. The quality of public school education deteriorates.

“Ensuring a suitable home for everyone is demanded by the respect owed to every human being and, therefore is a measure of civilization and the condition of a peaceful fraternal society.”-Pope John Paul II Angelus Address June 16, 1996

ources

*http://jlagman17.blogspot.com http://www.cohre.org/view_page.php?page_id=79
*http://www.unescap.org/pdd/PRS/ProjectActivities/Prior2003/living/box7.asp
*http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/philinsight.pdf
*http://www.adb.org/Resettlement/proc_urban_AID.pdf
*http://www.no-burn.org/wna07/wna2007.presentations/WNA07.Successes.ECW_cabuyao.pdf