Cape Town - Five shacks in Joe Slovo, Langa, were torn down on Wednesday after their occupants defied an order to move to make way for a R480 million housing development in the area.
The Western Cape Human Settlements Department and the Housing Development Agency plan to build 2 639 houses in the Joe Slovo Phase 3 Project for families who earn less than R3 500 per month.
In demolishing the shacks, the department was enforcing a court order that the five families had signed on April 16, agreeing to move.
Ninety other families, who had been living in the same area, moved within the project area.
Three of the five so-called “sit-tight” families said they did not want to move until the department gave them a letter stating they would be entitled to a house in the new development. Five new shacks in a nearby area were erected for the evicted families.
The sheriff of the court led a group equipped with hammers and crowbars to the site. The owners were not home and the group went from one shack to the next, smashing padlocks. Belongings were put in bin bags and the structures were knocked down.
When Nolusizo Ndaba, 16, came home from school at about 2pm she found only a pile of her family’s belongings, including mattresses, boxes, blankets, pots and groceries.
“I’m going to wait for my mother to come back from work as I don’t know what to do next,” she said. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. For now, I have to look after our things until my mother comes back.”
Bruce Oom, the spokesman for human settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, said they were happy they had not met any resistance from the community. “Everything went peacefully and smoothly, and we believe that we have done the right thing.”
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