Housing backlog needs shift in mindset

26/02/2015 Cosmo Creek is a new surburb where about 800 new houses are been development in Cosmo City. The project was to accomodate people who earn a lot to qualify for an RDP house but earn too little to qualify for a bond. Picture:Paballo Thekiso

26/02/2015 Cosmo Creek is a new surburb where about 800 new houses are been development in Cosmo City. The project was to accomodate people who earn a lot to qualify for an RDP house but earn too little to qualify for a bond. Picture:Paballo Thekiso

Published Nov 19, 2015

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Johannesburg - The South African Human Rights Commission said on Thursday that State departments need a shift in mindset when approaching their housing obligations.

SAHRC Commissioner Mohamed Ameermia said, “Dignity is about respecting the way in which people live without forcing one specific model of living upon them, while at the same time ensuring that living conditions are constantly improved taking into account circumstances that may prevent them from acquiring the basics needed to live a dignified life.”

Ameermia said significant progress had been made in providing housing opportunities since 1994: “An estimated 3.7 million housing opportunities providing around 12.5 million people with access to housing along with further improvements in access to other basic services.”

He said the decision to host public hearings was to ensure an understanding of the challenges facing State institutions as well as communities.

SAHRC has found that the current housing policies and programmes had failed to take the needs of various people into account although mechanisms were in place to ensure that the needs of poor individuals were accommodated and adequately addressed.

“The SAHRC further found that the housing process lacks transparency and adequate access to information, denying millions of people the right to participate in the development of policies and plans which impact on their daily lives,” Ameermia said.

The report highlighted the role of the private sector in providing access to adequate housing in the country, as well as identified how private property owners contributed to the violation of the right to access decent housing.

He said, “consequently approaches to housing programming are not having desired impact of progressively realising the right to adequate housing and in some cases are in fact leading to perpetual rights violations where poor people continue to be excluded from the benefits decomcracy ought to be delivering to them.”

Some of the recommendations made by the SAHRC included that national government and provincial authorities needed to accelerate the assignment process to municipalities that have capacity to take over the housing responsibility.

It also recommended provincial governments prioritise the resources and skills capacity of poorer municipalities with a view to ensuring that they are able to fully manage the housing function through assignment.

ANA

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