Close to 500 mourners gathered in a tent in the Wallacedene informal settlement in Kraaifontein to pay their last respects to Irene Grootboom, the woman they called their "struggle hero".
Speakers passionately spoke of Grootboom, who took a fight for decent housing as far as the Constitutional Court in 2000 and won - only to spend her last years in a shack.
Grootboom, 39, made headlines again recently after the Western Cape Housing Department handed over nearly 300 housing units under the People's Housing Process programme to her community. But she was still waiting for her house. When the department handed over the houses last month,Vusi Those, spokesperson for then housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, said if she applied, she was bound to benefit "in the next round".
Grootboom died after a short illness 11 days ago.
She died at the Karl Bremer Hospital in Bellville late at night after her family had been to visit her.
"We'd just seen her and we hadn't been home for half-an-hour when I got the first call to say she was getting weak and then a few minutes later they called to say she had died," said Peter Roman, Grootboom's partner.
He was "proud" of her for the work she had done in the community.
Rennett Grootboom, Grootboom's 16-year-old niece, said Grootboom had brought her to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth when she was a small child and had been "like a mother" to her.
"She was very loving and would do anything for anyone. She did a lot for the people in the community. If it wasn't for her they wouldn't have houses now," she said.
Grootboom brought an application before the Constitutional Court eight years ago on behalf of children and adults living in appalling conditions in Wallacedene.
The benchmark judgment declared that the state was obliged to devise and implement "a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right of access to adequate housing".
- Cape Argus
Speakers passionately spoke of Grootboom, who took a fight for decent housing as far as the Constitutional Court in 2000 and won - only to spend her last years in a shack.
Grootboom, 39, made headlines again recently after the Western Cape Housing Department handed over nearly 300 housing units under the People's Housing Process programme to her community. But she was still waiting for her house. When the department handed over the houses last month,Vusi Those, spokesperson for then housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, said if she applied, she was bound to benefit "in the next round".
Grootboom died after a short illness 11 days ago.
She died at the Karl Bremer Hospital in Bellville late at night after her family had been to visit her.
"We'd just seen her and we hadn't been home for half-an-hour when I got the first call to say she was getting weak and then a few minutes later they called to say she had died," said Peter Roman, Grootboom's partner.
He was "proud" of her for the work she had done in the community.
Rennett Grootboom, Grootboom's 16-year-old niece, said Grootboom had brought her to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth when she was a small child and had been "like a mother" to her.
"She was very loving and would do anything for anyone. She did a lot for the people in the community. If it wasn't for her they wouldn't have houses now," she said.
Grootboom brought an application before the Constitutional Court eight years ago on behalf of children and adults living in appalling conditions in Wallacedene.
The benchmark judgment declared that the state was obliged to devise and implement "a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right of access to adequate housing".
- Cape Argus
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