A few decades have passed since the little neighborhood of Chere was  established in the Sidist Kilo area of town.   This neighborhood was in fact named after a well-known landlord who used to own almost the entire area of present day Chere until the advent of the Derg resulted in its expropriation from him.  Ever since then, Chere has continued to be marked by different features that have contributed to its present state.  Among the significant factors, the first one may be its extraordinarily high population density. But in its earliest days, Chere at least used to be a spacious neighborhood with sufficient paved footpaths and roads that allowed free movement within the locale. As spontaneous squatter settlements started to take place throughout the neighborhood, the number of inhabitants in it increased at an alarming rate with their makeshift houses packed together so tightly that there was no longer even any space for emergency access. 

Chere clutches more than one hundred ‘houses’ packed dangerously together within its small area. The biggest family unit may take up to two rooms whereas in certain circumstances, a household may live in an all-inclusive single room with their large family. Though not very common, it is not too odd to hear about a dual ownership of a given domicile by two different family circles commonly known as ‘Debal Aba-wera’.

Almost all of Chere’s dwellers are low-income earners having up to seven members in a given household. Supporting the family has always been a burden for the family heads. Though they are convinced that education could change their socio-economic situation, their low financial income hinders them from fulfilling such needs for their children. As a result, most of the youth are not well equipped to change their living situations in the future in terms of moving away from Chere. 

With houses too close together for any kind of privacy much less conditions conducive to basic health and safety, the occupants have few options but to live in a squalid, unsafe environment where they face multiple threats to their health and security. For one Chere lacks basic municipal services like water, sanitation, waste collection and drainage. The occupants also share common kitchens and toilets that seem to be very unsafe. As a result, they suffer a lot from infections like typhoid, dysentery and fever. The unplanned growth of this settlement makes conventional service provision complicated. “For instance, if fire erupts from one house, nothing can be done to control the fire until it reaches the main road side. Electric circuits are daisy chained and the side roads are too narrow to let even two people pass through simultaneously,” says one resident who has born and raised in Chere.

From the point of view of maintaining the vitality and social diversity of the neighborhood, most Chere dwellers prefer to stay in their locations which in some sense may be a positive aspect. Moreover, the tight knit community maintains a high level of social interaction (albeit without much choice) at ground level. Weddings and funerals are almost universally attended all in the community despite the cramped quarters that constrain many such gatherings.

What has changed in Chere over the recent past? Their talk laced with humor becomes serious with this question. To date, Chere has been one of the places in Addis where one can witness urban slum-dwellers worse off than the rural poor. The place has hardly changed all these years, according to the occupants. The only difference, they’ve seen is the TV and satellite dish antennas on the roof of houses now with the recent addition of concrete floors and stretched metal sheets to make their doors. A visible disparity between Chere and better-off neighborhoods has increased the social tensions. They don't have any hope of a new house and are sure they'll have to leave the place as and when the government wishes.

As far as the current conversations on real estate go, much of the focus tends to be on the expansive developments of planned communities with fancy houses being snapped up by the well heeled at very high prices.  Yet, Chere is probably much more indicative of how a much greater percentage of Addis residents are having to deal with the lack of sufficient housing in the city.  Government plans to build a large number of low cost housing units will help but have to happen a lot faster to keep up with the estimated 10% growth rate of the city’s population, many of which are much more likely to be of the low income variety that one finds today inside Chere.  And the private sector too, should pay much more attention to this demographic than they have to date (despite government regulations that require developers to dedicate 30% of their activities to low income housing in exchange for preferential land lease rates).  There is something very incongruous about the proliferation of high end, high cost housing in the same city where neighborhoods like Chere are an all too common fact of life in Addis.

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