Cape Town - Brenda Smith, fondly known as Auntie Brenda has called No 128 Bromwell Street home for 76 years. She was born in this house.
The fabric of the community she is part and parcel of is fast unravelling.
She and 16 families face the unsettling prospect of being moved nearly 30km from their Woodstock homes to Wolwerivier if the Western Cape High Court endorses Cape Town council’s request.
Despite the Western Cape High Court’s assertion that public transport and amenities were accessible at Wolwerivier, a Weekend Argus visit there this week proved the opposite, with residents of this temporary relocation area (since 2015) lamenting their lot.
The Bromwell Street residents are fighting the city’s plans to truck them to this wasteland in the metro’s northern reaches, far away from schools, clinics, job opportunities and other amenities.
“This is where I have lived all my life. This is the only place I know. At my age, how do you just get told that you are uprooted?” The Woodstock clinic, where she gets her chronic medication every month is nearby and so is Groote Schuur Hospital, where she sees a medical specialist.
The other families affected share her concerns as they wait an outcome their future is in limbo.
Some families have removed their children from schools in Salt River and Woodstock because teachers told them they could be moving soon and the space could have been given to children who will remain in the area. It’s three weeks into the school term and they fear their children might miss a year of schooling.
Smith said her mother lived in the house, until she died at the age of 95.
But the decision about her family’s future is weighing heavily on her. “What will happen to the relationships we have built here as a community? This keeps me awake at night and my health has taken a knock.”
The residents’ spokesperson, Charnel Commando, said they fear most of them might lose their jobs, especially those who start work in the early hours. They would have to travel a long distance.
Theirs will be a long trek as there is no bus service – employers prefer people who are reliable and arrive at work on time.
When the the Weekend Argus visited Wolwerivier, residents there described life as being “hard and painful”.
They are frustrated, angry and live in despair.
The area was meant to provide temporary emergency accommodation for the people who were removed from various informal settlements.
Prefabricated houses line gravel roads. They have a toilet, a basin which is used as a kitchen sink, electricity and water but no bath or shower.
Besides a crèche there are no social amenities. A spaza shop sells mostly bread, milk, sweets and cooldrink.
Children attend schools in Dunoon and Philadelphia and their parents organise private transport, which costs from R350 a month depending on the distance.
There are no clinics, no bus service and the only form of public transport are two minibus taxis that operate at certain hours and only between Wolwerivier and Dunoon.
The nearest hospital is in Atlantis.
Resident Nomnikelo Lani said the crime rate and drug use had increased, but the closest police station is in Philadelphia.
“Recently my family experienced a traumatic incident. I had to take a day off work to check on progress with the police. But what upsets me most is that we did not receive any professional counselling – we all still cannot come to terms with what happened.”
Lani said recently some families who were left out of the initial allocation of houses, forcefully occupied some houses that were empty for long.