Tackling the youth housing problem

Auroville Today: What do you see as the biggest blockage to Auroville’s growth?

The lack of fresh influx of young people who have the energy, creativity and enthusiasm to jump into an experiment like Auroville. We are an ageing community: the average age is over 40 while the Indian average is less than 25 years. We need to lower our average age by at least ten years. To do this we must create a fast-entry lane for youth who have the required skills and energy to come and work in Auroville, either as volunteers for a limited period or permanently.

And they want to come. Young people in India and abroad are looking for something different to do with their lives, and Auroville provides a fertile opportunity. But our present volunteer, entry and housing policies make it very difficult for them to join. Volunteers have great problems finding temporary accommodation and, on top of that, need to pay a hefty volunteer contribution.

Newcomers have to contribute around 4 lakhs to become an Aurovilian, which includes an advance for their future housing [see AVToday May 2016, page 2, ed.]. But housing has become very costly and often unaffordable for young people. An apartment now easily costs Rs 20 lakhs upwards, an amount which is not available for many youngsters. And our town plan has made it difficult to start low-cost housing communities, such as Aspiration in the early years of Auroville, within and even outside the city area, even though Auroville has plenty of unutilised lands.

We need to reverse the current trend. Joining Auroville must become simpler and easier.

You have been speaking about ‘a bed for work’. What does this mean?

When somebody joined Auroville in the early years, they would get a bed, a mosquito net, a place to work and free food from a communal kitchen. I’d like us to return to something like that, which is why I coined this phrase. The idea is that any young person offering to work in Auroville would be given the basic amenities free of charge. The bed space can be a capsule, a tree house, a stay in a hostel, or a room in a service apartment for young adults who have a small family. To achieve this, we need to prioritise the building of these spaces.

To make Auroville more welcoming to youth, I would also abolish the financial contributions that volunteers and Newcomers have to make at present. These policies have become outdated and are now blocking our development. In fact, I would go one step further and create an Auroville stipend system, giving young people who want to work for Auroville not only accommodation and free food, but also a stipend or maintenance.

Does Auroville have the resources to do this? A recent report by Manuel and Henk Thomas suggested that Auroville is in a dire economic state.

The Thomasses were talking about the stagnation of Auroville’s businesses and the insufficient carrying capacity of the economy, the inability of the Auroville economy to support the Aurovilians. You find this reflected in the insufficient monthly maintenance which the community makes available to its residents. But many Aurovilians seem to have other sources of income to make ends meet, which was not included in their study.

But if you look at the macro development of Auroville, you see that Auroville has grown substantially, particularly if you take the small size of its population into account. Not many communities with a comparable population size can afford the roads we are building and the public buildings that we have. Our income from donations and grants, such as from individuals and from the Government of India, has made these developments possible.

But how do you convince our policy makers to prioritise funds for youth accommodation?

There is a lot of inertia in the system at present: it affects our planners, developers , and those in policy-making and finance. We must change the status quo. The policy makers, for example, could decide to allocate a major part of the Government of India grants to the building of youth housing, and put a 3-5 years moratorium on the construction of new public buildings. Even if only 50% of our annual grant was used in that way, over five years we could allocate 25 – 30 crore rupees for such housing.

A step in this direction is now being made in Humanscapes, a low-energy, cost-effective project. The first phase, now under construction, will provide accommodation for 36 young people. The total project aims at providing 500 more beds in Auroville.

SAIIER too has shown interest in creating more youth housing. They want to construct a 100-bed hostel. And another 100-bed hostel, the Golden Jubilee Hostel, is planned for the 50th anniversary of Auroville.

These are all good developments, but they are not enough. The Housing Service has a list of well over one hundred Aurovilians without proper accommodation, and they too need to be accommodated. More money will need to be made available for housing.

All the projects you mention are government-funded. Is it wise to rely exclusively upon Government of India funding for creating new housing?

Government grants are one possibility. There are other ways, but they will require a lot of community discussion and support. For example, Auroville’s Unity Fund has a cash flow of between 20 – 25 crores. This money is deposited in the bank to earn interest; it is a major part of the community’s monthly income from which we pay our services, maintenances and so on. Can we use a small percentage, say 25%, for the creation of 50 to 70 additional beds for young people?

Another way might be to look at the savings of some of Auroville’s service and commercial units. Can they be used in part for the construction of houses or staff quarters for the Aurovilians working in those units?

A third way would be for Auroville to obtain a bank loan to construct housing, to be repaid in installments. An additional in-kind maintenance of between Rs 6,000 – 7,000 could be provided to those living in the new accommodation to service this loan. The extra money could be provided from services like Matrimandir, Solar Kitchen and Visitors Centre, all of which have sizeable surpluses, or from commercial units.

A fourth option is renting houses in the villages, where accommodation is much cheaper than in Auroville. Many young volunteers are already doing this. But here, too, the question is how people would be able to pay the rent from their monthly maintenance.

Then again, we are subsidising consumption by providing free electricity but we don’t put resources towards hosting youthful human energy. If we use the more than 1 crore provided to Aurovilians at present for free electricity to build free housing for youth instead then we will unblock a huge resource. The kind economy should begin by taking care of essential needs, like providing free food and basic housing.

Do young people require the same type of housing that is now being constructed in Auroville?

No, they don’t. They have a variety of needs. Many young people are simply looking for a bed to crash in and a place in which to interact with each other, while youth in their mid 20’s upwards look for more privacy and independent spaces like a studio or a small apartment.

As we grow older, we tend to forget how simply we could live when we were young. When I first saw the La Maison des Jeunes housing experiment at Citadines [see Auroville Today no 307], I was appalled: I thought they were chicken coops. But then I learned from the people who were living there that they were very happy.

There is a group of young Aurovilians who have between 3 – 5 lakhs rupees to spend on housing. The Budget Coordination Committee has said that it would be willing to provide Rs 3 lakhs to each of them to build a simple house, which could be similar to those at La Maison des Jeunes or in Pony Farm. These non-permanent houses could be set up on outlying lands that are threatened with encroachment; or in places in the city where ‘demountable’ housing has already been approved, like at the Pony Farm.

Another option could be to build expandable ‘start up’ houses. A basic unit of 25 to 30 sq.m. could be provided freely or at a low cost and the residents would have the choice to expand the unit as their needs grow.

Some people look upon demountable houses as second class accommodation. Is there not a danger that we create cheap housing that is sub-standard or ugly?

I am confident that what we build will not be substandard. We have to define minimum standards of cleanliness and workmanship – we don’t want people living in cow sheds – and give very specific briefs to our architects.

The community, over the years, has built youth housing and has experimented with low-cost and even build-your-own housing. Was it a success?

The youth housing projects, I believe, have been a success. We have Kailash for Auroville youth up to 21 years, and for older youth there are the WDK, Muerchi and Mir collectives. The International House in the International Zone is another successful example.

The recent build-your-own attempts have not been very successful. Realization, which started with the enthusiastic participation of young volunteers and Newcomers, had ultimately to be built by hired labour when the youthful energies ran out of steam, leading to a cost price per square metre comparable to ordinary housing. For these and other reasons, another experiment in low-cost housing, Sacred Groves, is no longer low-cost.

Do you feel there is enough collective will to start constructing youth accommodation on a large scale?

Today, I think there is maximum agreement in the community that new, young energy is required in Auroville. Look at how many young people are being welcomed into our working groups, and the support given to youth activities like YouthLink. It is now imperative that our policy makers meet together to find solutions to the youth housing problem.