City plans to relocate homeless
HOMELESSNESS has reached a crisis point in the City and needs a systemic long-term solution, activist organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi co-director Jared Rossouw said yesterday.
About 3 500 families are living in temporary relocation areas (TRAs) and incremental development areas (IDAs) across the metro.
At an Urban Land Justice gathering in the CBD, the City’s decision to relocate dependent residents to these areas was heavily criticised.
The gathering was arranged following several demands for affordable housing in the CBD, and a campaign against the sale of prime public land to private investors.
“What the City is actually doing is building a state-paidfor informal settlement, like a concentration camp.
“The problem is that it does not deal with the root cause of landlessness and homelessness, and it never can.
“In other cities, such as Johannesburg, they use subsidies to renovate buildings for poor residents,” Rossouw said.
Mayco member for Human Settlements Benedicta van Minnen said there were seven TRAs across the city that provide emergency accommodation for varied periods of time, depending on the situation, or until people get back on their feet. These TRAs are in Delft, Mfuleni, Dunoon, Fisantekraal, Masonwabe and Khayelitsha.
Residents of Blikkiesdorp, a TRA in Delft, have on numerous occasions said they’re tired of listening to the “City’s lies” of them getting houses over the past nine years.
In 2007, the DA-led City set up the temporary relocation area for families who had invaded unfinished units at the N2 Gateway housing project.
It was supposed to be a short-term housing solution, but many of the people who were moved into the corrugated iron units that crisscross the sandy terrain of Delft have been living in this “camp” for nine years.
There are three IDAs where people are placed while housing for them is finalised.
In one case, nine Woodstock residents who face eviction from their Bromwell Street homes rejected the City’s offer to move to Wolwe Rivier, 35km north of the city centre, because they said the area is plagued by drugs, TB and unemployment.
The residents, many of whom have lived in the area their whole lives, were handed eviction notices after the Woodstock Hub bought their homes.
When residents visited Wolwe Rivier for the first time this week, they rejected it, with one saying she would rather sleep on the streets than move to an area with no facilities or amenities.
When asked how TRAs and IDAs were working for the City, Van Minnen said residents get the required assistance and the prolonged weak economic situation has resulted in some choosing to stay for longer periods.
“IDAs are a relatively new concept but are in line with the City’s commitment to improving the lives of our residents over time and on a larger scale, made up of different types of housing opportunities.
“This is to help many more instead of only a few by developing large-scale developments with full amenities and economic, transport and social opportunities over time,” Van Minnen said. francesca.villette@inl.co.za
@FrancescaJaneV