'I'm not going to move'
2008-02-18 15:40
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Cape Town - After three years of watching government's N2 Gateway housing project going up in Delft, more than 1 000 residents were crushed when told the houses were intended for another community altogether. Feeling they had little choice, these residents decided to illegally occupy the houses last December.
Just on two months later, the Cape High Court granted an eviction order forcing the "home invaders" to vacate the occupied premises.
It will be yet another move for mother-of-three Beverley Jacobs, 39, who has never lived in one place for more than a year.
Angry and disappointed, the community made the anonymous houses their own when Thubelisha Homes, the BEE company hired to build houses all over the country, closed the building site for the December holidays.
And as the housing crisis appears to be seemingly insurmountable, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu faces growing criticism, court proceedings and one delay after another.
'Top-down approach'
In its 2004-5 report the Development Action Group, an NGO, wrote: "The top-down approach in the N2 project undermines its overall sustainability... The casual, continued and increasing practice of excluding people from decision-making about development processes that directly affect their lives is an obstacle that communities are unlikely to tolerate for much longer."
It was an accurate prediction. The attempt to move thousands of people around and clear away shack dwellings ran into massive problems when none of those people had a say in their movements.
The use of force and lack of consultation invoked memories of the apartheid government's forced removals in the 60s and 70s.
Their dissatisfaction was met with sympathy by DA councillor Frank Martin - people chanted his name as they marched to Thubelisha's offices last Thursday.
In his ruling, Judge Deon Van Zyl slammed the councillor for misleading the community who were "wrongly advised by people who should have known better".
False prophet
Itumeleng Kotsoane, DG of the Department of Housing, had the harshest words, calling Martin (pictured left) a false prophet and a "would-be politician struggling to build a career at the expense of the poor".
Yet, despite facing criminal charges, Martin has gathered a task team of loyal community activists like Beverley around him.
"I am not moving," she announces adamantly. "If they demolish me I will demolish this house."
Further along the N2, Mzwanele Zulu, 33, a Joe Slovo resident has been waiting for eight years for housing.
The shack dwellers of Joe Slovo, in Langa, were expecting subsidised government houses to be built on the site of the settlement.
But government's plans are to relocate, by force if necessary, residents from Joe Slovo informal settlement into the housing project in Delft.
The relocation would effectively disrupt their livelihood, residents believe. Joe Slovo is close to trains and within walking distance to many of its residents' places of work.
The Development Action Group has found that 63% of people who were moved from Joe Slovo to Delft in the past were either fired or retrenched because they were often late or simply did not arrive for work because of lack of transport.
Democracy by the rich
Mzwanele (pictured right), a former security guard who moved to Cape Town from the Eastern Cape in 2000, recalls the forced removals of District 6 when people of colour were forced out of Cape Town's CBD.
"Now under this democracy," he stops and laughs bitterly. "Or this so-called democracy by the rich, people are being chased away again. Are we not supposed to be living near the CBDs? Is it because we are black - perhaps that is the reason why."
Martin Legassick, a history professor at the University of the Western Cape, slammed the "high-handedness of Sisulu" in an article.
He called on her to meet with and listen to Joe Slovo residents as well as Delft residents. "Then it will become clear to her that both communities are united in their demands, and that they can suggest answers to their problems."
But Sisulu has stood by her decisions.
She said Thubelisha has been instructed to help the residents move back to their "previous places of accommodation" and to provide them with transport and a temporary advice centre.
Meanwhile, Western Cape local government and housing minister, Richard Dyantyi, said he would announce alternative arrangements for people needing accommodation.
But the people of Delft insist on staying. "Whatever is going to happen I'm not going to move," says Beverley. "I have nowhere to go."
Photos by Ruvan Boshoff