[DEBATE] : (Fwd) CT class apartheid

[Patrick Bond]

SOUTH AFRICA: Government housing project excludes poorest of the poor

CAPE TOWN, 1 November 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of the poorest residents 
in Cape Town, South Africa, are facing eviction from an informal 
settlement to make way for a government housing project.

About 20,000 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement near Langa, 
a township about 15km from Cape Town along the N2, the main access road 
to and from the airport, are opposing their forced removal to Delft, 
about 20km northeast of the city, because they say it would reduce their 
standard of living further and make it difficult and more expensive to 
travel to the city for work.

The multimillion-dollar N2 Gateway housing project, situated adjacent to 
the highway, will change the first impression hundreds of thousands of 
international visitors have of the city - which reaps hundreds of 
millions of dollars from tourism - as they will travel past a formal 
housing estate rather than a squatter camp on their way to the city.

Attempts to evict Joe Slovo residents met with violence in September 
2006 and housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu then took recourse through the 
courts, seeking sanction to remove the residents to allow the project to 
be completed. Cape Town's High Court is to rule on the issue next month.

In the wake of the clashes between Joe Slovo residents and police, the 
housing department issued a statement saying temporary relocation was 
necessary so the area could be redeveloped before the residents were 
rehoused there.

However, the co-ordinator of Joe Slovo's anti-eviction task team, 
Mzwanele Zulu, told IRIN the Joe Slovo residents were feeling betrayed 
by the government, which had not kept its promise to provide affordable 
housing for the squatters.

He said in 2005 some Joe Slovo residents agreed to move to Delft after 
fires had destroyed their shacks, on condition that they would return to 
Langa and be accommodated in formal housing once the first phase of the 
project had been completed.

A blueprint for slum eradication

However, this agreement was not fulfilled and, consequently, the 
remaining residents were unwilling to leave their homes to make way for 
phases two and three of the project, Zulu said.

"In May of last year we were all told we had to move to Delft because 
the government was going to build us affordable houses where our shacks 
were. But these new houses will be bonded and rented houses and people 
must earn between R3,500 (US$500) and R7,000 (US$1,000) per month to 
qualify to get a home.


Photo: Bill Corcoran/IRIN
Government's temporary housing in Delft
"Most people who live in Joe Slovo earn less than R1,500 (US$214) per 
month, so they are automatically excluded: they are evicting the poorest 
people in society as part of their plans to eradicate informal 
settlements and waiting lists [for low-cost housing]," he said.

South Africa has a housing shortfall of about 2.2m dwellings and, like 
most of South Africa's major cities, Cape Town's informal settlement 
population continues to expand as people are drawn from poor rural areas 
to the cities in the hope of employment.

According to Cape Town's latest estimates, more than 400,000 units are 
needed to eradicate slum dwellings in the metropolis, and that number is 
expected to grow by about 16,000 annually.

The latest statistics from the Department of Housing's 2007 Community 
Survey reveal that 14 percent of the Western Cape Province's population 
are still living in informal settlements.

The N2 Gateway project was launched by the housing minister in 2005 to 
reduce Cape Town's housing backlog, as part of a combined national, 
provincial and local government effort in response to the housing crisis.

It was touted as a blueprint for slum eradication that could be rolled 
out across the country. "We intend to get this right, and signal 
government's commitment to provide shelter to the homeless in as short a 
timeframe as possible," the minister said.

But within a year, the project, managed by the state-owned company 
Thubelisha Homes, was beset with problems ranging from 
inter-governmental infighting and cost overruns to a lack of 
consultation with residents and strikes by construction workers.

In 2006 the Cape Town mayor, Helen Zille, who is also the leader of 
South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), 
expressed grave concerns about the project, saying it was flawed and had 
become "a poisoned chalice".

Following the mayor's public criticism, the national housing department 
ejected the city council from its role as one of the project's three 
partners for voicing its concerns outside of official channels.

The allocation of housing in the project was then transferred to the 
Western Cape provincial government, which is controlled by the ruling 
African National Congress (ANC) party, rather than the city council, 
which is controlled by the DA.

Poor sidelined by property prices

Zille told IRIN in an interview that her original assessment of the 
project being "bad policy" was unchanged, because it was pushed through 
ahead of the 2005 local government elections. The Western Cape Province 
has been hotly contested since South Africa achieved democracy in 1994, 
and the reins of local government have see-sawed between the ANC and DA.

'' The reason things went wrong on the project is that it was initiated 
too hastily, without proper building plans or financial modelling''
"The reason things went so wrong on the project is that it was initiated 
too hastily, without proper building plans or financial modelling. It 
was built using existing housing subsidies for Reconstruction and 
Development (RDP) houses [a now defunct programme launched soon after 
the ANC came into power], which at the time were about R40,000 per unit.

"But the multi-storey flats at Joe Slovo cost over twice that. In other 
words, they did not factor in the greater construction cost of 
high-density housing when budgeting for the project. As a result, the 
funds dried up, and the project incurred cost overruns that could not be 
paid.

"The [construction] companies wanted to sue the state, but it was found 
that they had not signed contracts with the city or anyone else. In the 
end a deal was made to rescue them from bankruptcy, but it brought the 
project to a halt," Zille told IRIN.

Zille said huge expectations had been created among poor communities 
after the government announced that 22,000 housing units would available 
for the slum dwellers, but to date only about 2,000 have been delivered, 
despite the project being scheduled for completion in 2006.

'' The land occupied by some of the city's informal settlements has 
become extremely valuable in recent times and, rather than make it 
available to the country's poorest residents, politicians and the 
private sector want to cash in on its potential ''
"The pick of these [houses] were promised to the Joe Slovo community, 
especially to the victims of the fire there a few years back [which 
destroyed about 5,000 shacks]. So the project is now being met with 
massive opposition from the people who had been promised homes," she said.

Members of the Joe Slovo anti-eviction task team believe the real reason 
behind the government's about-turn on providing the poor with affordable 
housing is the booming propertry market.

Cape Town's property prices are among the highest in the country because 
the city is an international tourist destination, which has resulted in 
an influx of foreign investors paying high prices for housing, often 
well beyond what most South Africans can afford.

The latest 2007 First National Bank Residential Property Barometer 
revealed that Cape Town housing costing less than R600,000 (US$85,700), 
has experienced the highest property growth rate in past year, when 
compared with other major cities like Pretoria, Johannesburg and Durban.

The land occupied by some of the city's informal settlements has become 
extremely valuable in recent times and, rather than make it available to 
the country's poorest residents, politicians and the private sector want 
to cash in on its potential, said anti-eviction task team co-ordinator Zulu.

"The bonded houses in the N2 Gateway project will cost between R150,000 
(US$21,500) and R250,000 (US$35,700) and private sector banks will make 
loans available to people who can afford the repayments - which is not 
the residents of Joe Slovo."

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