Adequate housing is a right

THE article “Family attacked by shack dwellers”, which appeared in POST (April 19-23), refers.

According to the report, angry shack dwellers, upset at being prevented from hooking up to an illegal source of electricity, went on the rampage, stoning a Clare Estate family and dumping the wreck of an old car on to their driveway.

Reservoir Hills and Clare Estate has one of the largest informal settlements in the eThekwini region.

Many of them have lived here for almost 30 years in pathetic conditions, with no proper sanitation, electricity or water.

When they arrived here they had small children, but today those children have young children of their own.

During last year’s local government elections the majority of the ratepayers in Ward 23 voted for the DA, in the hope that their councillor would be able to contain the expansion of informal settlements in our ward and also to re-house them in the council’s housing projects.

The eThekwini Municipality is involved in one of the largest housing projects in the country, with the council building thousands of houses at Cornubia, north of Durban, for indigent people.

If my memory serves me right, Jayraj Bachu, the former ward councillor for the area, had mentioned that the shack dwellers were on the council’s priority list to be moved to Cornubia.

It is time our DA ward councillor started making arrangements with the housing department to relocate the shack dwellers from Reservoir Hills and Clare Estate to Cornubia.

Our constitution says everyone has the right to adequate housing.

The shack dwellers of Ward 23 need to enjoy this basic right. PHILISHA GOVENDER

Reservoir Hills