Since the Beirut Port explosion on August 4, 2020, dozens of buildings in the neighborhoods surrounding the port have been evacuated. Damage and trauma are the reason why these neighborhoods became empty of all residents, old and young, born there or recently settled, tenants and owners, Lebanese or foreigners. The structures of boutiques, workshops, offices, restaurants, bars, schools, and many other facilities were all cracked. Electricity and water were also completely cut off in many affected neighborhoods. All of this made many residencies unsuitable for living in. These factors promptly drove the population outside the area.
However, this departure is a serious threat to the recovery of a viable city and the neighborhoods' revival. There is a real danger that this rapid depopulation will turn into permanent migration, especially since most of these neighborhoods had been subject to fierce real estate speculation during the past ten years. Let's take the Mar Mikhael area as an example. Multiple generations of displaced people have settled in this area close to their workplace. Then, starting in 2006, the local economy underwent a major transformation. Restaurants and bars replaced old factories. The low rental rates and the unique urban and social character were a pull factor. As a result, the land price in these neighborhoods increased by 200 percent. This coincided with an acceleration of ownership transfers from owners to real estate companies and investors (see the map of ownership transfer).
Most of the affected neighborhoods are made up of old or historical buildings, inhabited by a large population of tenants. Rent is the primary means of accessing housing in Lebanon's major cities. In Beirut, tenants make up 49.5% of the inhabitants (According to a survey conducted by the United Nations Development Program in 2008). In the Mar Mikhael neighborhood, the percentage of tenants is about 55% (see the chart). They are threatened today to become permanently displaced due to their vulnerability and to the legal framework that regulates their presence in the city.
Tenants are divided into three categories:
- Old tenants: They inhabit the old buildings in the cities. Their rentals are regulated according to the old rent law, which ceased to be in force starting 1992. This group is at risk of being evicted and displaced. Meanwhile, there are no housing alternatives because of the new law regulating old rents (approved in 2014 and amended in 2017) that deprived many old tenants of their rights to stay in their residency[1].
- "New tenants," according to the new rent law: This is the only rent law that regulates rentals in the city. This law stripped tenants of their right to stay in their residency and transformed their relationship with the residence into a mere investment relationship in which the landlord determines terms. According to the new rent law, the contract threatens the sustainability of housing, limiting the rights to staying in the residency to only three years. There are no provisions to regulate the rent increase once the three-year contract comes to an end or to guarantee tenants are not evicted at the end of the three-year duration. These contracts are also not linked to any markers that regulate the rental fees or determine the currency of the rental allowance payment. This matter is wholly left to the landlord's discretion and opens the margin of profit-making[2].
- Tenants without contracts: The absence of housing policies and programs that would secure residency for a large segment of the limited income population gave place to other residential arrangements, which consist of dividing apartments into rooms, sharing, or bed renting. Many of these shelters lack adequate housing conditions. They are characterized by overcrowding and the absence of sanitary and engineering standards. The residents are mainly students, workers, migrants, and refugees. They suffer from the absence of rental contracts, which leaves them in a fragile legal situation.
The explosion disaster was exacerbated further by exploiting these groups who are anxious about their housing and their future in the neighborhood, especially that the state is not fulfilling its duties and assuming its responsibilities. Besides, residential rights are not protected. Under the pretext of cracked buildings, residents face eviction pressures from landlords on the one hand and from security forces implementing the governor's decisions on the other. Large numbers of tenants resist these pressures. No guarantees were provided for their return, and no housing alternatives were offered until the reconstruction is completed. However, the security forces exert even additional pressure forcing those residents to sign documents that would hold them liable for refusing to evacuate.
Fears of permanent displacement are due to previous practices of the authority regarding the right to housing. They are exacerbated by catastrophic scenarios of previous reconstruction experiences. Beirut and its suburbs have been destroyed several times before. We have witnessed the destruction of other Lebanese cities, villages, and camps. They were rebuilt in a way that reproduced the same causes that initially led to the destruction, in the sense that reconstruction fostered class and other societal division, or served specific interests. As a result, an additional population was displaced. The local economy was destroyed, and a large gap was created between the past and the present.
That being said, the process of rehabilitating and reviving the neighborhoods of Karantina, Mar Mikhael, Gemayzeh, Jeitaoui, Roum, Fasouh, and Badawi, will constitute a real political struggle. The authority will try to exploit the destruction to trigger a network of interests linked to the real estate and construction sectors. We will try to establish pathways that put the entire population at the center of the recovery process and provide legal and social support to the most vulnerable groups.
Therefore, we launched a socio-economic survey initiative that will cover the affected neighborhoods. We urge all those who were affected and the social workers to report damages and threats related to housing.
[1]. Old rents amount to 20%.
[2]. If the landlord does not find tenants who can afford the rent, there are no incentives to put the house in the market since there are no taxes on vacant residencies. Vacancy rates in Beirut have reached world records. In some neighborhoods, they exceeded 30% of the available apartments.