Cape’s White House was once a home

Published Jul 31, 2015

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A once proud family home has been demolished while we are burdened with a crippling housing backlog, says Cape Times photographer Jeffrey Abrahams.

Cape Town - It was with some trepidation that I stood in front of the so-called White House in Hout Bay. A known crime hot spot, it made me feel vulnerable with my exposed camera. But as I walked around the deserted house, my anxiety slowly gave way to a profound sadness.

A large palm tree stood guard at the front gate, while the house itself seemed to nestle in the warm embrace of many large trees. The path to the front door, carefully defined by rocks, is flanked by remnants of a variety of plants and shrubs, many still in their containers or pots, struggling valiantly to survive.

I could imagine children playing there, happy in the lush surroundings, their sturdy house with its warm hearth reassuringly behind them. It’s obvious this house was once a much-loved home.

Not far away, just across the road in fact, hundreds of people are living in squalor, desperately erecting flimsy structures to provide shelter. I can only imagine the resentment of parents leading their children to shacks, having to walk past a good house standing empty.

It was my first visit to the house, but it’s obvious that if the City of Cape Town had taken its own advice, the situation could have been averted. The mayor appeals to “all property owners to take responsibility for their property and ensure that they do not become a haven for criminals”. That’s rich, considering that this house is city property.

People living in the area are clear about what happened: once the fence behind the house came down, it provided a perfect escape route for criminals. They would rob passengers alighting from taxis across the street, run through the yard to the wooded area behind and disappear between the houses. The consensus is that if the house had been occupied, this would not have occurred.

Neither is this an isolated case. Across the peninsula there are schools which have been left to rot. At the old Conradie Hospital, row upon row of what was once staff housing awaits a similar fate, the derelict, roofless structures a blight on the landscape.

The stately hospital itself, much like GF Jooste, is an empty shell. All these buildings belong to various organs of state. The common refrain is that when the original purpose of these buildings lapses, or their maintenance is sufficiently neglected, they are simply discarded. Vandalism is sure to follow and their fate is sealed.

The White House itself is now history. A once proud, if modest, family home has been demolished.

All this while we are burdened with a crippling housing backlog, limited state resources and endemic unemployment. I’m sure the reasons are many and the regulations legion why this happens, but the bureaucratic mantra of “Rules are rules” is clearly stifling progress, and being a dog in a manger is leading to criminal wastage. I expected more innovation from the World Design Capital.

The finger-pointing of politically affiliated community organisations isn’t helping either. Only the most myopic can claim the expensive destruction of scarce state resources a “victory for community activism and unity”. A visionary organisation in which needs of the community take precedence over point-scoring would have seen the building put to good use, to the benefit of all.

But the biggest absurdity of all: the proposal in council, supported by the Hout Bay Civic Association, is that the now vacant erf be used to provide, wait for it… housing.

 

Cape Times

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