Hall dwellers’ rights infringed
THE Pietermaritzburg High Court has reaffirmed the rights of a group of Mooi River residents to have access to decent housing facilities.
The court was dealing with a case brought by the Mpofana Municipality to evict 186 people living in a municipal hall in Mooi River.
Judge Themba Sishi stayed the eviction application and ordered that the municipality find temporary alternative accommodation that met the guidelines set by the national housing code in terms of water supply, sanitation and electricity.
After the judgment was handed down, Vumani Cekwane, 40, who was living in the hall, said it felt like the municipality wanted to throw them away.
He said he had lived with his wife and son at the hostel before it burnt down.
“I’ve had to separate my family, send my wife one way and my son the other while I remain here because of work. I could not bear for them to live this way. After being here for six months, when we realised this was not a temporary shelter as the municipality had promised, I sent them away,” he said.
But, this means he now has to spread his meagre wages between them, leaving him with nothing extra to be able to afford other accommodation.
Describing conditions in the hall, Cekwane said women slept on the stage of the hall, separated from the men who slept on foam mattresses.
“There is no man of the house here, we all sleep next to each other with no separation of an individual’s space except for the ends of your mattress,” said Cekwane.
The almost 200 people take bucket baths as there are no facilities. The toilets often clogs up due to the number of people using them every day.
Cekwane said the situation has caused tensions between them and the surrounding community, who used the hall for functions.
“I am really heartbroken by the way they are treating us. We are people, they must treat us like people, people who fall under the constitution’s protection,” he said.
Recognising the needs of the dwellers, Judge Sishi ordered the municipality to also find permanent accommodation for the residents within three years of the date of occupation at the temporary residence.
According to the judgment, the group had been living in the Bruntville hostel in the area but it was burnt down by other members of the community in 2015.
Thereafter the hostel dwellers were moved to the municipal hall and have been staying there since.
However, the municipality argued that the arrangement regarding them staying in the hall was meant to be temporary and the group should now be moved to a sports centre.
The municipality further argued that the group had vandalised the hall and were using electricity illegally and under hazardous conditions.
While the dwellers admitted that conditions in the hall were poor, they argued that as the sports centre building was not large enough to accommodate all of them and some would have to stay in tents erected on the centre’s sports field.
Judge Sishi said it would be “grossly unjust” to evict the residents from the hall and have them move to the sports centre. He said the centre’s facilities were “manifestly inadequate” as bathroom facilities, water supply was not sufficient and rooms were too small to accommodate all the dwellers.
“If some of the occupiers are forced to live in tents on the field, their constitutional rights to dignity, health, bodily integrity and access to housing will be infringed.”