Constructive input will get us where we need to be
THE concept of temporary resettlement areas, which is born from national legislation, aims to give people with nowhere else to go, highly serviced emergency accommodation – indeed such as in the often misconstrued Blikkiesdorp development – until they get back on their feet or have resolved their emergency situation.
Some of these people were rescued from living in stormwater channels or in old cars (entire families, in fact). Some had lost their homes because of bad debt and the worsening economic situation, because of social ills or addiction, through fire or eviction, or just general hard luck in hard times.
But they were assisted with emergency accommodation in temporary relocation areas by the City of Cape Town – a lifeline that the Cape Times, in its predictably divisive and ill-informed manner, seems to reject in its entirety if one looks at its editorial slants.
We’ve seen so many success stories of people turning their lives around and finding their way again, sometimes with further assistance from the City where possible. As no two people are exactly alike, some have not yet managed to rebuild their lives to a level of independence. And they remain in Blikkiesdorp.
The plots are big, every home has a toilet and a shower, there’s a smart park and other community facilities, and there is the constant care of City officials on the ground, who often play the role of social worker, plumber, parent or mediator, apart from performing their core duties. It is also within walking distance of City Health’s Delft South Clinic.
The need out there is pronounced, and these areas, seven across the metro in total, are often in high demand.
On the west coast of the metro, the Wolwerivier incremental development, which is not an emergency accommodation area, is criticised for, among others, its distance from central Cape Town.
This newspaper drives the narrative of the various vocal pressure groups, and skims over the fact that the majority of the beneficiaries who were relocated to Wolwerivier were living in horrid rubbish dumps in that same area, just a few kilometres away from where Wolwerivier was developed.
They are now living in cleaner, safer and fully serviced units and we are increasing their access to health and social facilities. The community has started its own food garden with the help of the City and EPWP workers.
Incrementally, over time, this development will be more formalised. A new community is developing. We are working hard to enable job, social and transport opportunities in this popular growth node of the metro. It is simply unacceptable for this newspaper to imply that the people of Wolwerivier are somehow lesser human beings because they are living in Wolwerivier. The aspirations of this community are firmly in our sights and minds.
It is often those who parachute in and out of situations, driven by various agendas and other considerations, who are actually the ones who forget about certain communities. The City and our officials stand with these communities – every single day of every single month of every single year.
We remain when the other parties leave and the dust of distortion settles. This newspaper would be well advised to have a really good look, with some smidgeon of objectivity, at what the City is trying to achieve and to start interrogating the often loose and false claims that are being made by pressure groups, and which are regularly being slurped up as absolute truths.
You don’t have to agree with the City. You should keep us on our toes. You don’t have to pretend that every decision that we make is perfect or that we do not have shortcomings, which we certainly do. But you need to understand that for every one consideration that you think about and drive in the public sphere, we are looking at a hundred others.
Ultimately, we remain driven by the desire to improve the lives of all of our residents. Let’s start talking to each other in a more constructive manner in order to achieve this.