CITY’S EMERGENCY HOUSING PLAN FAILS THE TEST

IN A HIGHLY-anticipated verdict, poor and working class families that have lived in Bromwell Street in Salt River for generations have praised a Western Cape High Court judgment that ruled against their displacement to rural hinterland, Wolweriver.

It is hoped their victory against the City will lead the municipality to further reconsider its approach when displacing the vulnerable to the outskirts of the metro.

This, however, remains to be seen as Mayor Dan Plato says the City is “considering its options”.

After more than six years, the Western Cape High Court on Monday declared the City's emergency housing programme unconstitutional in responding to the emergency housing needs of people being evicted from the well-located inner-city, Woodstock and Salt River areas.

The Woodstock Hub had bought the Bromwell Street houses in 2013 and instituted eviction proceedings during July 2015.

At the time the property development company wanted to construct “middle income” units for rent between R5 000 and R9 000 a month.

Many of those living in the houses at the time earned R3 500 a month or less.

The City had, in turn, planned to relocate the people, including children, to an incremental development area in Wolwerivier.

The residents rejected this, arguing that it was far from schools, health care facilities and transportation options.

In his judgment, Judge Mark Sher directed the City to accommodate the residents as close as possible to where they currently lived.

“It is declared that the (City's) emergency housing programme and its implementation, in relation to persons who may be rendered homeless pursuant to their eviction in the inner City and its surrounds, and in Woodstock and Salt River in particular, is unconstitutional,” Judge Sher ordered.

The Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, which took up the residents' case, said in other municipalities in the country, transitional housing was often used to provide temporary emergency housing to people rendered homeless as a result of evictions.

But in Cape Town people were often moved to far-flung temporary relocation areas (TRAs) and incremental development areas (IDAs), like Blikkiesdorp and Wolwerivier, or informal settlements, like Kampies.

Described as a “hell hole”, Blikkiesdorp was established in 2007 by the then DA-led City near Delft for families who had invaded unfinished units at the N2 Gateway housing project.

It was envisaged as a short-term housing solution, but many of the people who were moved into the corrugated iron units that criss-cross the sandy terrain are still there, and the area has become a haven for crime, gangsterism and squalor.

Disha Govender, head of the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre and attorney for the Bromwell residents, said there were no direct implications of the judgment for the residents of Wolwerivier and Blikkiesdorp in particular.

But the organisation hoped the City would take it as an opportunity to reconsider its approach and meaningfully put in place measures to ensure it did not continue to displace the most vulnerable to the outskirts of the City, and that it would develop a constitutionally sound and just policy on emergency housing.

“Most obviously, flowing from the declaration, is that the court has ordered that the City provide our clients with ‘temporary' emergency accommodation or ‘transitional' housing in the Woodstock, Salt River or the Inner-City Precinct, in a location which is as near as feasibly possible to where the applicants currently reside,” Govender said.

Plato said: “The City is concerned about the implications of this judgment for both private property owners and municipalities across the country.

“While we acknowledge the court's decision, we do not agree with the outcome of this matter.

“We are in the process of considering our options.”