Cape Argus - With its limited resources, the state will never be able to give everyone a house, says the Department of Human Settlements.
“We want to do things beyond our means. The state has an obligation to assist the most vulnerable who have fallen through the cracks due to apartheid, but it is absurd to give children as young as 18 a house because they have babies.
“What we need to do is improve living conditions,” said Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela.
He was commenting recently after an incident in which 300 people broke into 111 housing units in Eerste River. Phase 1 of the provincial Our Pride housing project in Eerste River consists of 600 fully subsidised houses, and 221 gap-market houses.
Nine people were arrested on charges of public violence following the illegal occupation.
“These invasions take different forms. Some are politically motivated while others are desperately poor people, and then there are those who feel entitled,” Madikizela said.
“It’s difficult to keep track of the housing backlog because the reality points to a different situation.
“People who often squat on land are not on waiting lists. There are a number of things we are doing wrong.
“Some people who have received houses sell them and move back to shacks.”
Tandeka Gqada, mayoral committee member for human settlements, said there were about 363 000 registered applicants on the city’s housing database.
“According to the latest census, the City of Cape Town, is the most populous area in the province.
“It has one of the highest rates of in-migration and growth in South Africa, at 30 percent growth for the past 10 years.
“Coupled with this rapid growth rate is the need to overcome the legacy of apartheid-era planning which resulted in inadequate infrastructure and service provision in many areas around the city.”
She added that in the past financial year 2012/13, the city has spent an estimated R805.37 million on housing-related programmes, including housing upgrades.
In the past two years violent clashes have erupted between police and residents in Joe Slovo, Hangberg and Tafelsig over housing.
* A week ago a group of informal settlement residents in Hangberg threatened “another bloodbath” if the city continued its plans to move them to make way for a block of 72 apartments.
* Earlier this month the Western Cape High Court served a final eviction order on Khoisan activists who had illegally moved into a block of flats meant for District Six land claimants.
* In June the court ordered the three levels of government responsible to find a solution to accommodating 6 000 shack dwellers facing eviction on pieces of land, owned by Lyton Props Twelve and Robert Ross Demolishers, on Vanguard Drive in Mitchells Plain.
* In May a Goodwood company, NTWA Dumela Investments, approached the Western Cape High Court to try to curb land invasions at the Marikana informal settlement in Philippi.
Cape Argus