Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela has issued the strongest warning yet to housing beneficiaries: sell or rent your houses and we’ll take them back.
Speaking at the launch of the Nuwe Begin housing project in Blue Downs on Monday, Madikizela said beneficiaries should learn to value their homes.
“If they try and rent out their house or sell it, it shows me that they don’t really need the houses,” Madikizela said. “And if that happens, we will use whatever legal means at our disposal and take the houses back, and give them to people who really need them.”
A total of 1 200 fully subsidised houses are being built as part of the Nuwe Begin project, with phase 1 delivering 238 units. The remaining 964 are expected to be delivered by April next year.
The project includes single and double-storey units.
Nine hundred of the 1 200 units have been reserved for beneficiaries from Khayelitsha and 300 for beneficiaries from the greater Blue Downs and Mfuleni area.
The project was launched in 2007 to accommodate families affected by severe winter flooding.
Deputy Human Settlements Minister Zou Kota-Fredericks, who was also at the launch, said the Western Cape was “on the right track” with its integrated housing delivery plan.
She said she was excited that mixed-income integrated housing projects were finally getting off the ground and that the R218 million project – funded jointly by the provincial and national governments – would see people from different walks of life live together side by side.
The first group of 39 beneficiaries were from Blue Downs, Mfuleni and Khayelitsha.
Beneficiaries Nonzane Bharuza, 53, and her partner, Nceba Khwinana, 63, from Site B, Khayelitsha, are both disabled and in wheelchairs.
Bharuza said it was the happiest day of her life. “I’ve been waiting for a house so long, I can’t even remember how many years,” she said. “I’m happy. This house is beautiful and it is disabled-friendly for us.”
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