Cape Town - There is growing concern Cape Town’s housing crisis has been badly underestimated by the city due to the rapid increase in backyard dwellers on council-owned property as well as private property.
Calling the City of Cape Town’s estimates of people living in structures “extremely inadequate”, backyard dweller advocates have urged the city to convene an urgent dialogue of all groups across the metro dealing with their issues.
Benedicta Minnen, mayoral committee member for human settlements, admitted there are a significant number of the city’s people who are housed in this way.
“There are approximately 45 000 backyard dwellers residing on council property and approximately 35 000 backyard dwellers residing on private property. In general, it is a prevalent type of accommodation across the metro, but especially in areas such as the metro south east and also in areas where there are good transport facilities, economic and educational opportunities and basic service delivery.”
According to Van Minnen, it is proposed that more than R333-million be spent on the provision of services to council-unit backyard dwellers and the upgrade of informal settlements across the metro.
Van Minnen said in the budget for the 2016/17 to 2018/19 financial years for the city’s settlements directorate it is proposed there are more upgrades and the extension of services which, she said, was “key to reducing the incidents of fires and to improving the living conditions of our more vulnerable residents.”
The city’s electricity services department has also budgeted R50m for backyarder service provision for the current financial year. However, the city estimates of the number of backyarders are disputed.
“The figures that the city is currently using as the base for its budgeting purposes do not give a clear account what is actually going on or of how serious the problem actually is, because much of that data was from a survey taken in 2011,” said Ricardo Sedres of the Hanover Park backyard dwellers organisation.
An indication of the seriousness of the problems faced by “the invisible people of the city” can be found in a place like Forest Village, Eerste River, where Weekend Argus spoke to several backyard residents. At a location in Plein Street we encountered several structures in the backyard which had become home to several generations.
“I have been living in the backyard for more than 20 years and my children and their children are also living here,” said Evelyn Philander.
She said she had applied for a house just before South Africa became a democracy “but the council has never given me an answer and I really do not know what to do, because we live in really bad circumstances.”
Her son, Willem Philander, who has a record of his application from 1999, called on the city “to look at how we still have not been given a proper answer from these applications. I have two girls and it is not very good to see them grow up in these conditions.”
Another backyard dweller, widow Magdalena Ben, said her 35-year-old son had to move to Ravensmead, because the dwelling was too small. “The problem here is truly disturbing, because there are many people in this area who live in yards like me.”
Weekend Argus