Down Memory Lane: the inception of CLIFF

A DFID financed research commissioned to Homeless International (HI) adhered to the experience of the Indian alliance and other SDI affiliates to demonstrate the fact that organised communities of the urban poor were capable of producing projects to house themselves.  The challenge was to develop financing strategies that would accommodate the urban poor to improve the quality of their lives with the solutions and strategies that they developed. Ruth Macleod and the HI team worked with Sheela Patel and the Indian Alliance as well as the many affiliates of SDI to document evidence that communities could drive such processes. It was ostensibly a research project, but DFID actually agreed with the proposition and Community Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) was born; the first project financed through the facility was the Rajeev Indira Housing Cooperative society.

On the 24^th of February 2002, the Rajeev Indira Cooperative society was inaugurated. The project brought the entire state government machinery of Maharashtra from its Chief secretary, its Housing department and  city officials to inaugurate the first self managed slum redevelop project in the city. Mahila Milan and NSDF leaders from all over the country attended the inauguration also.