Province’s RDP applicants have been ‘forgotten’

MORE than 740 000 people in KwaZulu-Natal are waiting for Reconstruction and Development Homes (RDP), and the number is rising.

Since the mid-1990s, families living in informal dwellings in Durban have made applications for government subsidy housing (often referred to as RDP houses).

However, some of them are still waiting.

Martin Meyer, a member of the KZN Provincial Legislature and a DA provincial spokesperson for Human Settlements, said the housing backlog in the province was just over 742000.

He said that according to the yearly report from the Department of Human Settlements, KZN had the second-highest housing backlog in the country.

“Provincially, the eThekwini metropolitan municipality has the highest need, while the Amajuba District has the lowest housing backlog,” said Meyer.

He said there were various reasons for the high number.

“The first is the high number of people moving into the province and moving to eThekwini, which is the only metro in the province.

“The other reason is that delivery of houses has been slow, and we know of half-built projects or projects that have stalled for various reasons, and where people have been waiting for decades now.

“A large part of the problem is that there is no transparent and easily accessible housing list. So, people cannot see where they are on the list. The DA has consistently called for the department to use technology to make the housing lists transparent.

“The current methods allow for a lot of corruption and there are so many cases where people just jump the housing queue. The slow delivery of houses due to corruption and other reasons is also not helping.

“The premier (Sihle Zikalala) has set as a target that they will get rid of all transit camps, like in Isipingo, near the Isipingo Clinic, but so far they are far behind schedule in achieving this.”

Councillor Mdu Nkosi, from the IFP and a member of the eThekwini council, said: “In 2006, the city said it would set up temporary transit camps. I said to the council that if it wanted to do that, it must ensure that the camps are only for a few months.

“But so many years later, the camps have turned into settlements and hundreds of people are living there.

“It’s unfair that people have to live life with the bare minimum. Some people still don’t have access to water and electricity or have proper roofs over their heads.

“It’s a violation of human rights. In winter, the iron from the wood and iron homes get cold and makes the place colder, and in summer it makes it hot. It’s unbearable to live in.”

Nkosi said that during the 2010 World Cup, homeless people were moved from Durban to a transit camp in Isipingo. They had not been moved back.

“It’s over a decade now that they have been dumped and forgotten. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

Sbu Zikode, the leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, said: “There are two reasons why people are not being housed timeously. One is politicisation of the allocation of homes. This means that if you don’t support that party, it’s unlikely that your application will be tended to. Second, it’s corruption.

“If you look at eThekwini, it used to build 16000 homes a year but the reality now is that only between 4000 and 8 000 homes are being built.

“There are about 800000 people living in substandard housing conditions in the city, and it’s not on. Substandard are those living in shacks, wood and iron homes, and informal settlements.”

Zikode said a lot of the elderly people who applied for RDP homes more than 20 years ago were forgotten.

“The elderly are forgotten and it’s really sad.

“The words of Nelson Mandela was, ‘don’t treat people, especially the elderly and women and children, badly’. He would be disappointed to see how the elderly are pushed aside.”

He said officials in eThekwini needed to be caring and passionate, only then would the housing situation improve.

Maureen Rambhadursing, the director of the Poor Flat Dwellers Movement, added: “It’s sad that 26 years into democracy, families are still suffering without proper roofs over their heads.

“We get a number of people coming to us to assist them with their applications but, unfortunately, there is nothing much we can do.

“People’s constitutional rights are being violated because they are not given adequate housing timeously.”

The Department of Human Settlements in KZN did not respond at the time of publication.