Informal Human Settlements of Cape Town

Cape Town – Informal Human Settlements. Shack towns are very dense settlements comprising communities housed in self constructed shelters under conditions of informal land tenure, a dense proliferation of small, make-shift shelters built from diverse materials, this populace pressure causes degradation of the local ecosystem and produces severe social and health problems.

Water is obtained from communal taps and toilet facilities range from buckets to pit latrines. These areas are prone to flooding & fires; killing 358 people and displacing 237,412 in the past decade, affecting 68,710 dwellings.

The Western Cape has a Tuberculosis (TB / MDR-TB / XDR-TB) and HIV/AIDS pandemic which is exacerbated by the conditions in these habitat environments. Informal human settlements occur when administration and planning fails.

The improvement of living conditions in informal settlements is imperative to a functional society. "We also have a housing waiting list of about 460,000 and 222 informal settlements around the city (150,000 shacks compared with 28,000 in 1994), and a growing crime rate," Cape Town Mayor - Helen Zille. April 10 2008

The province has a housing shortage of nearly 500 000 units. Western Cape Housing MEC Bonginkhosi Madikizela has warned if something drastic is not done it could take 28 years to address the housing backlog in the province. Oct 14 2009

The housing situation in the Mother City is so bad that people who are currently on waiting lists for houses will stay on those lists for another 15 to 20 years...

"If one takes into account that 350,000 houses are needed, the properties would stretch from Cape Town to Malmesbury.

"Our infrastructure can't handle this."

There also isn't enough money for brick houses.

"Government should openly and honestly admit to the people that it can't afford properties with brick houses.

"We have to consider what we can afford and for that reason we have to think about servicing properties rather than building houses on properties," said Plato.

Cape Town Mayor - Dan Plato 20/11/2010

[InternAfrica would like to point out the 150,000 reduction in housing demand from last year to this; either depicting a misunderstanding of the demand, or figures or the mayor has no clue as to what is going on in his city. Clearly 150,000 housing units were NOT delivered in the Western Cape last year, nor 110,000 units in the past two years] Good thing someone is joining the dots hey Helen...?

On Average each shack is home to 3,4 human beings.

Http://www.InternAfrica.org http://InternAfrica.blogspot.com/

A not for profit organisation which aims to educate and ensure Africans the right to dignity and adequate housing through secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources, while promoting justifiable economic and social development.

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