Strengthening the cooperation of local communities for housing security

Abstract

This research uses a participatory action methodology which is divided into 3 phases: meanings analysis, significance and housing problems of low-income people. Development stage of local community cooperation activities including the system synthesis and mechanism of cooperation of local communities towards housing security use in-depth interviews, group chat, workshop, lesson learned together with observation and field notes. The target groups are members and the committee of Baan Mankong Tha Makham, community leader, the network development partner’s representatives and relevant officers. This focuses on qualitative data collecting which uses content analysis and summarization. The study found that: for the meaning, the importance and the housing problems of low-income people, the following are considered: (1) Meaning and importance of the word "Nice city and Tha Makham Model". It consists of three dimensions: dimension of residence, dimension of happiness and dimension of quality of life. (2) housing Problems of low-income people such as urban problems, residence condition problems, the problem of inequality, and problems of accessing capital. Most of people are low-income and disadvantaged who live in urban areas. Some live with relatives or in a rented house on the land of Royal Property, land of a temple, and land of State Railway of Thailand. Some don’t have any land or residence of their own. Some were expelled and their houses were dismantled from the area. The system and mechanism of cooperation of local communities towards housing security has four characteristics as follows: (1) People system, including members, committee as well as committees that look after and manage various funds in Baan Mankong project. 2) The organizational system i.e., the local government organization and related agencies (3) Information system, i.e., information and various activities related to the development of Baan Mankong project. 4) Capital system consists of monetary capital or budget, such as fund, credit, community welfare and social capital. These are the value of coexistence, support, sacrifice and sharing including social relations that requires 3 main thinking bases: (1) thinking principles e.g. living according to the concept of sufficiency economy and self-reliance (2) principles, namely Baan Mankong principle, saving principle, cooperative principle, house construction principles and development principle towards sustainability and (3) doing principles refer to the participation on thinking, participating, doing, developing and taking the benefits. .