"You have to negotiate with the poor," she said. "If you're not shooting them, the poor will just move from one place to the next. It's futile to think you can get rid of the poor."
On its Web site, UN Habitat says investing resources in massive social housing schemes is a "don't" of slum policy.
But the Thai government has done just this since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was inspired by Moscow's tower blocks during a trip to Russia two years ago.
Thaksin said his government would build a million subsidized homes in five years to help spur the economy.
Hopeful factory workers and low-level civil servants have been queuing in the thousands to reserve one.
Bangkok authorities say they will move thousands of squatters into the apartment blocks, mostly on the outskirts of the city.
Critics say the move has been tried before and does not work because many poor people prefer to sell at a profit and return to squatting if they have no say in where they live.
The body that lent to the Bonkai slum, the Community Organisations Development Institute (CODI), helps Thailand's 5,500 slums buy land or negotiate occupancy pacts.
The Bonkai community has emerged from the fire stronger than ever, Sangwaen said.
"Business people think this land is expensive and it should be used more efficiently to get more money. But now we have new rights we will fight to keep them," he said.
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