Reports of CPT homeless 'work camps' alarming

The Cape Argus on Friday published a shocking exposé on a new City of Cape Town plan to rid the city centre of people who live and make a living on the streets. Anyone who refuses to voluntarily participate in these "community village" rehabilitation programmes would be forcibly placed there through the community courts system.

In the Argus, however, member of the city's mayoral committee (Mayco) for social development, Suzette Little, said that it was "proposed for community villages to complement existing street people programmes and services". In fact, the way the city is spinning the idea is, according to safety and security mayco member JP Smith, "part of a general move towards a more caring and supportive approach in dealing with street people" and as an "alternative to a 'law enforcement' approach". In other words, Little and Smith are claiming that this new programme is about love, care and rehabilitation, rather than discipline and punishment.

But that is not how homeless rights advocates and others see the programme, which was presented as a "done deal" to city improvement district (CID) representatives in a private meeting on the March 15 this year.

According to a source (who asked to remain anonymous because his/her organisation's funding comes through the city), Little presented the programme to the CIDs in a very different light. In the said meeting, she dispelled any semblance of compassion by asserting that "food or jobs cleaning streets or recycling attracts them [street people] to the city, so we must start cutting them off".

Showing a lack of understanding and empathy for people who live on the streets, Little apparently exclaimed: "Dis lekker op die straat, dis a free party. [It's nice on the streets, its a free party]." (It is not as if Little has never gotten paid for having a party of her own: she was infamously caught playing Solitaire during a 2013 budget vote.)

In other words, Little wants to use a reported R40-million budget allocation for helping street people to put an end to all support initiatives in the city centre. This includes soup kitchens, recycling initiatives and even the religious Straatwerk jobs programme. As a result, this would make it hard for them to live on the streets and a new "Street People's Reintegration Unit" would encourage them to "go home" (nevermind the inconvenient truth that most often their home is the street itself).

'Blocking the pavement'

But if people living on the street refuse to go – because the freedom of movement and right to refuse work is their dignified right as per the anti-slavery provision in the Constitution – the unit, with the help of law enforcement will build a dossier against them of minor by-law infractions, such as "blocking the pavement", and eventually use the community courts to force them into these rehabilitation villages.

The source claims that twice during the meeting, Little let slip the word "camp" and had to correct herself. According to the source, "winking at her executive director for social development Ivan Bromfield", Little reportedly said that "he'd be angry if she uses the wrong words".

Why is the word "camp" a big no-no? Simply because it immediately brings to mind war-time forced labour camps, Chinese re-education camps and even the horrifying concentration camp. (If one remembers, the English pioneered the concentration camp against Afrikaners and black South Africans during the Anglo-Boer War).

This account of the private meeting with CID representatives is so important precisely because Little and Smith assumed they were preaching to the converted. In a private meeting to the representatives, they felt that they could be candid about their true intentions while assuming they generally already agreed with and actively participated in the criminalisation of street people.

This is not the first time the municipality has been caught trying to "cleanse" the city centre of street people. Smith, in fact, was instrumental in the winter readiness plan: the arrest and forced removal of hundreds of street people from around Cape Town Stadium in anticipation for the 2010 World Cup.

What is becoming more clear about this initiative is that rather than being caring and supportive, the city's plan is to use by-laws to strip away the little dignity this vulnerable section of the population has left. 

It does not matter how rehabilitative these so-called villages will be – if the individual is not going there of his/her own free will, then it cannot be effective. By forcing street people into these villages, they are effectively incarcerating them for not having a roof over their head.

These villages are nothing more than glorified prisons a la the controversial Chinese Detox Centres; they are essentially presentable and unoffensive versions of Nazi forced-labour camps.

This time, however, its not Jews or homosexuals or communists that fascism has deemed a scapegoat for society's ills. Instead, it is merely street people whose freedom and dignity in this country don't count because their only home blocks a pavement in front of a nightclub and their "unsavoury" form of livelihood scares away the tourists.

- M&G

Desperation and fear way of life for people in Delft

Cape Town - It’s just past midday and, as the wind sweeps loose sand and stones across a dilapidated park, a teenager stands among roaming toddlers waiting for her little sister to swoop down the slide into her arms.

It may seem like an ordinary day, but for the 16-year-old it’s another spent worrying about whether, in life, there will be a safe landing for her.

It’s been 20 years since the advent of South Africa’s hard-won democracy, but the teenager doesn’t even go to school – because none of the schools near her home has space.

“We moved to the camp from Woodstock because the rent became too high,” says the girl, who has been living in Blikkiesdorp for two years.

“I would have been in Grade 8 and it’s not nice for me, because I’m missing out on schoolwork,” she adds, staring at the ground.

At the beginning of the month, the girl attended night school at Leiden High, but left because the coursework was at a Grade 11 level.

Now she does household chores and helps her mother look after her four siblings and her sister’s 11-month-old baby.

“For me, it was better living in Woodstock than here. Here there are shootings, rapes, and they rob people, even children.”

Her mother, she said, agreed it was no place to raise a child, and that her brothers had become badly behaved.

“I see all the bad things happening around me in this place, and children are sometimes neglected by their parents.”

Her dream was to become a social worker.

In Delft’s Section 9, three teenage girls in Grade 8 at Simunye High tell a similar story.

“We’re not safe. A week ago, a three-year-old was raped down there,” said one, pointing to an area down the road.

The trio said pupils were robbed by gangs.

“Lots of children drop out and end up doing drugs like dagga and tik,” said another.

To keep busy after school, they play netball or soccer at a nearby community hall, but the girls said more facilities were desperately needed to keep children off the streets.

Parks were ruined by people who stole the equipment to sell as scrap.

They hoped to see a clean-up of the area, housing, more jobs, and bursaries for young people.

But at the top of their personal wish lists was finding a home away from Delft.

Faced with housing backlogs, rising crime, social ills and a spate of child rapes, Delft’s ballooning population is demanding better service delivery. The damage caused by residents during protests bears testimony to their frustration.

Rows over housing allocations also keep many Delft communities in limbo.

Andrew Badenhorst, 50, who moved from Belhar six years ago, said residents had no clue to whom the land in Blikkiesdorp belonged.

He said the crime rate was rocketing with a constant influx of people. He estimated that 15,000 people lived in Blikkiesdorp, which had about 2,000 structures.

Children, who accounted for most of the population, were most at risk.

“Many of them don’t go to school and end up abusing alcohol and drugs, and get lured into the gangs. Kids sell their bodies for R20 for tik.”

Some people desperate for money sold their structures.

“Then they go back to the street. Our biggest concern used to be housing, but we get discriminated against because backyard dwellers and people from settlements like Freedom Farm and Malawi Camp are getting preference.

“As we are stuck here, at least help us to fight the high crime rate. Must more people die before the city wakes up?”

A traffic light in Symphony Way, torched during a housing protest the previous night, marks a smaller informal settlement named Tsunami.

Resident Thobeka Dyasi, 29, said she was even prepared to continue living in a shack – “away from here”.

Danger lurked around every corner in Tsunami.

“We don’t have toilets, and it’s not safe going to the bushes, because you can get raped or robbed. I’m even scared now just having my phone on me here in the open,” Dyasi said.

She worked in the area as a carer and the only advantage to living in Delft was saving on travelling costs.

With winter approaching, there is the fear that rain will exacerbate their problems.

Of most concern was that the municipality wanted to evict them, Dyasi said. “One official even threatened us and said they would force us out by bulldozing our shacks. We’re so scared, as we don’t know where we will go.”

Blikkiesdorp is in ward 106, which includes parts of Delft South, Leiden, The Hague and Cape Town International Airport. The 2011 city census found Delft’s population was 152 030.

“Delft is like a dumping site. Blikkiesdorp and Tsunami’s people were dumped here, and I don’t think the city’s going to give them housing any time soon because it is looking at backyard dwellers. The growing number of people also fuels crime,” said Reginald Maart, chairman of the Delft Community Policing Forum.

The community’s frustrations were “high”, and with the dire socio-economic situation, more input was needed from government departments to uplift the area and combat crime.

“They need to look at housing for the poor, as there’s no space for children to play. We have six policing sectors, but only one vehicle for each. Resources are poor.”

Maart has written to Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer asking him to deploy more police and vehicles.

On the question of child safety, he said: “From the time school closes until the parents come home from work, children can be seen wandering the streets, and that’s when drug-lords get hold of the kids and build relationships with them, luring them into a life of crime.”

Delft needed “drastic change” to create a safer environment, Maart said.

“When we have community meetings, you often don’t see ward councillors, or they are there for only a few minutes, then leave. Social workers are not visible enough.”

Ward 106 councillor Khayalethu Makeleni said councillors did not receive invitations to these “alleged” meetings, and did not have a relationship with the community policing forum.

He agreed the community was “angry” and felt police did not have effective child protection plans.

Other problems Makeleni listed were high unemployment, alcohol abuse and conflict over housing allocations.

In working through housing lists to approve residents for the Delft Integrated Housing Project, in which 2 407 homes are to be built, it had often been found that false information had been given, he said.

“Some backyarders speak of being in Delft since 1981, but our argument is that Delft was not even here at that time.”

Some people living in the free homes provided as part of the controversial N2 Gateway housing project wanted to be included in the new development because they did not regard their “alternative” structures as proper houses.

The Gateway project has delivered more than 14 000 free homes but, after nearly nine years, has yet to be completed.

- Weekend Argus

District Six family offered Blikkiesdorp home

Cape Town - The city has told the remaining family living illegally in a District Six apartment complex that they will be provided with a new home in Blikkiesdorp “on humanitarian grounds”.

This follows a ruling, made by Western Cape High Court Judge Robert Henney on June 20, that the city must help find the family of Galeema Stoffels, 70, accommodation because she has grandchildren with her.

Stoffels was part of the Khoi group that on June 15 occupied 11 units in a housing development meant for Group Areas Act returnees, but their action was condemned by the Khoi-san Council, officially recognised by the government.

She is living in one of the units with her daughter Isa Isaacs, who is in her 40s, and Isaacs’s two children, aged 9 and 11.

The rest of the 40-strong group was evicted on June 21.

On June 20, Judge Henney said Stoffels and her family could not be evicted like other group members, and the city should find alternate accommodation for the family.

The trust that manages the apartment complex said “legitimate” claimants had been waiting to move into the units, when they were occupied.

On Monday, Stoffels received a legal letter from the city, informing her that she could move into a “unit” in Delft Symphony Temporary Relocation Area, commonly called Blikkiesdorp on “humanitarian grounds”.

“The city does not believe that it is obliged to provide you with formal housing outside of its normal housing policy and allocations ahead of those lawfully awaiting same,” read the letter.

“(The city) is also not obliged to provide you with emergency accommodation in view of the fact that you broke into the unit at District Six which you occupy. If, however, you and your family are to be genuinely rendered homeless should you be evicted, our client is prepared, on humanitarian grounds, to offer you a unit at (Blikkiesdorp).”

The unit in Blikkiesdorp will be on its own plot, have access to electricity and share flush toilets and water with four other families.

Stoffels said she would refuse to be “relocated” to Blikkiesdorp, but might consider moving elsewhere.

Tania Kleinhans, a spokeswoman for the group that occupied the units, said they were unhappy with the city’s offer.

“(The family of Galeema Stoffels) are aborigines who are being removed from the place of their birth,” she said.

She said the group’s occupation of units in the complex three weeks ago was not about housing, but about bringing attention to the rights of aborigines who should be allowed to live on “ancestral Khoi land”.

Stoffels has been given until Tuesday to accept the offer. This is the date the court will decide if its earlier interim eviction against the group should be finalised.

- Cape Times

‘Communities need more than houses’

Cape Town - Communities need to hold all levels of government accountable, irrespective of which party is in power, to ensure that they have basic services, says Pregs Govender, deputy chairwoman of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

“And saying there are different competencies (local, provincial and national) does not absolve them of co-operative governance,” she said.

The SAHRC recently came under fire from Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who was outraged that it was conducting site inspections in the informal settlements of Kanna, Barcelona and Europe without informing the city. In a letter to the commission, De Lille also had strong words for its spokesman, Isaac Mangena, whom she accused of acting for the ANC Youth League.

Govender was speaking during a visit to Blikkiesdorp, near Delft, where residents discussed their concerns about sanitation, water, housing and other issues with the commission.

She will also visit Khayelitsha and the farming community of Ashton this week, as part of the Western Cape leg of the SAHRC’s national inspection of basic services. “Whether it’s the ANC or the DA, national or provincial government, people are saying that government must fix (the problems). Government needs to come together.”

Referring to De Lille’s comments, Govender said “disparaging” remarks about the commission undermined its independence and impartiality. “The constitution explicitly protected Chapter Nine institutions, such as the SAHRC, from state interference.”

Mina Perry, 71, who was moved to Blikkiesdorp six years ago, told Govender conditions were unbearable. “I hate this place. Every night I ask God for his blood to wash over me and my house, so I can find a way out of here.”

Perry said crime was rampant. “We hear the men and women screaming (when they are robbed).”

Govender said the government needed to do more than just provide houses in informal settlements. It needed to encourage social cohesion, so that communities who were forced to live together could do so in peace.

“There is a lack of co-ordination between all levels and spheres of government. We need to explain to government how to respond,” she said.

- Cape Argus

Delft housing interdict bid fails

Cape Town - The provincial government has lost its court bid to bar seven community leaders from interfering with a housing project in Delft.

It sought an interim interdict against the seven, alleging that they were central to organising a series of protests - some of which turned violent - at the site of the Delft Symphony 3 and 5 Housing Project between March 11 and 22, and that they caused the unrest.

The construction site was, at times, temporarily shut down and there had also been damage to the site.

But the Western Cape government’s application was dismissed in the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

Acting Judge Michael Wragge found that it was up to the applicants (in this case, the provincial government), to demonstrate that the seven - cited as Zwelohlanga Ndiki, Xolani Thomose, Vuyisile Goqoza, Nomthulizi Meyeki, Loyiso Mtana, Siviwe Nondomga and Mncedisi Kolisi - had committed acts that interfered with its rights, or that it had a well-grounded apprehension that they might do so.

He said that the community leaders’ advocate, Michael Bishop, had argued that there was no evidence that his clients had committed or encouraged violent or destructive acts.

“I agree… I am driven to the conclusion that, far from inciting the crowd, the respondents… took steps to pacify and disperse the crowd,” said Acting Judge Wragge.

According to his judgment, work on the project started shortly after the contract was signed with Group 5 Motlekar Cape Joint Venture - though, the award of this tender is subject to a judicial review that is still pending in the high court - in February.

Unrest had first broken out on the site on March 11.

Other incidents also occurred up until March 22, when a security company was hired to secure the site. Since then, there had been no further protests and the contractor had resumed its building operations. While certain of the seven community leaders had been present at certain of the protests, they had told the crowd to leave the site.

On March 13, after a meeting with the local councillor failed to take place, several of the community leaders had requested the crowd to go home.

After one of them was arrested the following day - and advised by the police that he had been arrested for vandalising the councillor’s house the previous night - he discovered that despite his pleas for the crowd to go home, the community had embarked on a protest without them because they knew that their leaders would try to stop them.

Acting Judge Wragge also awarded legal costs to four of the seven.

- Cape Times

Nobody gets my vote

Have any of you watched a series of "Boardwalk Empire"? It's based on America during the 1920's and 30's when they banned alcohol, and the gangsters who initiated the whole ploy while preying on the religious, average American Joe.

The parallels of this series to me are so poignant living in South Africa, because the ruling elite can be equated to gangsters like Enoch "Nucky" Thompson and Al Capone, and the masses of Americans can be equated to the religious, the rich, the struggling classes and the corrupt police, judicial system and so on. It's like America then is Africa today.

They're brutal, and they're blatant. They fly in the face of adversity. They commit crimes in broad daylight, and somehow end up in parades as hero's of the people.

Bodies pile up, money goes missing, but still they're in power. Still they do as they please, live it up, and go against their promises. Yet still the retarded masses vote for these morons.

Obama promised to pull all the troops from the Middle East when he was campaigning, a year or so later he got the Nobel Peace prize a few months after he sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan.

Zuma has wasted billions of Rands on private ventures, has more criminal charges against him other than Mugabe, and yet the poor who have suffered the most under his rule continue to support him.

The DA has kept their nose clean because they've had to. They really haven't stole money, or spent lavishly on parties or squandered any of the big bucks. Anyone with a reasonable mind will agree with this.

However - poverty remains, and the DA has not solved the poverty issue. The DA hides from the poor, and in fact contributes to the very same problem that the ANC are guilty of - except they don't steal money or be corrupt - but they're not solving problems. There is a difference between solving problems and simply maintaining what was there.

I have been involved with charity work for about 17 years now, and I don't see any change for the better in the Western Cape. Almost R200 000 a year we've raised every year and spent on worthy causes hasn't made a scratch let alone a dent. It's almost exactly as it was when I was a kid - it's just been "maintained". No, all you snobs, I'm not talking about the gleaming eye-sore of a stadium and the walk of fanciness, or the new bus lanes, and never ending "improvements" of main arterial roads. I'm talking about Delft, Grassy Park, Du Noon, Elsies Rivier, Gugs, Khayelitsha, Crossroads, Lavender Hill, Cape Flats... to name a very few pits of hell that are within 45 minutes of the city centre. I won't even mention rural areas around dorpies.

Why are they still there? Why is there no improvement in those areas?

To make matters worse, they're expanding. A little known secret are white townships like Reichenbach that are also expanding. Even worse is that there are so many people becoming township material, that the DA is forcibly removing them and placing them into what is called "temporary locations". The problem with these places, for example one of them is called "Blikkiesdorp" (in Delft behind the airport) is that even charity organisation struggle to help them because of red tape. 

Because Blikkies is registered as a government "temporary" location no structures are allowed to be built without government permission - that includes, let's say putting in shipping containers that are modified to be used as crèches or training centres etc. People from different areas are thrown in there - whites, coloured and blacks, from very different "poor" backgrounds so they clash. Gangsters take over, young girls resort to promiscuity, drugs and prostitution because they see their hard working elders getting nowhere earning an honest days living. Also, these temporary locations are positioned in the middle of nowhere, near already gang infested areas, away from walking distance of finding work. The government erected what I can only call Nazi tin cans in regimented rows, with painted numbers, and sub standard shack-building - in winter tin shacks leak and are like fridges, in summer the wind blows sand through and you can fry an egg in 5 seconds by flinging it at the tin wall. 

Toilets are ripped apart by TIK cretins, waste removal by the government is idiotic - too little, either locked (so you can't put the refuse in) or too small for the amount of waste required. These "temporary locations" (government sanctioned concentration camps) are hidden from the public, except for when there's gang violence - that way the average Joe sitting at home can say "See, the peasants are becoming restless again" in a typically dismissive manner. If only they knew that the government forced them there, and that only a small portion of the 25 000 in places like Blikkiesdorp are corrupt, gangster types. There are just as many good people trying to dig their way out of that sand pit, but nobody writes an article about them.

Why are so many people still in the depths of despair, destitute and unable to crawl out of the hole they were born in? What has the DA done to help these people, where is Helen when they have charitable organisations at the ready to implement projects but politics thwart the plans to do so?

I don't know how "in touch" the average person in SA is with people who are, for a lack of words, "beneath them financially" and perhaps it's to my own detriment that I've come across the brick wall of poverty as a citizen by having personally met these people and tried to help them, that I am jaded by the lack of support from government at large (the DA being in my charitable "turf") and the immensity of it.

If there ever was a moment in politics, when someone could make a difference, and be a people for the people, not just some Mac Donalds takeaway then this would be the time for the DA to actually implement active, sustainable projects instead of trying to shove it all under the carpet.

No more voting for people who are busy f***ing up good people who want to just live a good life, be honest and get by without hurting anyone else, but can be f***ed by a system that assumes they're bad - yet the very people who are bad are the ones who make the rules in the first place, so they can f*** anyone who tries to be honest.

I am not pissing on the DA's parade, but please, if you think Helen is Mother Theresa you're just as stupid as those who think the ANC will rule until Jesus arrives.

No more believing in those who never deliver and enrich themselves. The simple fact is that regardless of who you vote for, your voice is not heard, and you are stupid to vote for anyone.

It is time to boycott government, and put our demands first. For too long we have put our past hurt, racial divide, class and financial status first. Sadly we're yet to have a party that ALL South Africans can vote for that we all trust. The DA is the only party that can stand against the corrupt ANC - but that's not good enough, and most black people won't ever let a white party run this country. We need a new political party, one that we all believe in, and one that actually delivers on it's promises.

If we keep allowing ourselves to be ruled, and keep thinking we're like kids in preschool instead of shareholders of this country, then we can keep expecting crooks and apathetic political parties to keep doing either bugger-all to fix the problems but just maintain what's there (DA) or do what ever they please and get away with fraud (ANC).

Until such time, I abstain from voting.

- news24

The psychological strain of living in Blikkiesdorp (Tin Can Town)

CAPE TOWN, 30 October 2012 (IRIN) - A recent academic study has identified a range of mental health disorders suffered by shack dwellers in South Africa's Western Cape Province, from chronic insomnia to low self-esteem. 

The study, The Impact of Living in Transitional Communities; The Experiences of People in Blikkiesdorp and Happy Valley, was conducted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Because of budget considerations, the study was constrained to two settlements. 

“The researchers did not have the resources to do large-scale interviews, so instead we set up four different focus groups of between 10 and 20 people living in Blikkiesdorp and another similar transit camp called Happy Valley. And we found there was a high level of correlation between the findings in each case,” Shaheed Mahomed, a CPUT civil engineer lecturer and Blikkiesdorp community activist told IRIN. 

Among the mental health issues identified were depression, anxiety and panic attacks, chronic insomnia, anger and low self-esteem. 

No hope 
The study's authors said there was a dearth of information about the mental health of shack dwellers; the report was an attempt to address this knowledge gap. 

Blikkiesdorp - also known as “Tin Can Town” - was established in 2008 as a temporary transit camp for 600 people. It has since grown to hold more than 4,000 inhabitants in 1,500 one-roomed corrugated iron structures, about 34km from Cape Town. Happy Valley is another relocation camp in the same vicinity, inhabited by 3,000 people. The camps were created ahead of the 2010 World Cup, which South Africa hosted, to house people removed from illegally occupied buildings. 

The big negative to come out of the interviews was the sense of hopelessness and fatalism these people end up succumbing to

Rasheed Ahmed, a clinical psychologist at UWC who led the team of psychology student researchers, told IRIN, “The big negative to come out of the interviews was the sense of hopelessness and fatalism these people end up succumbing to. A lot of this has to do with the fact they see no future for themselves. Humans have to have hope and a sense of purpose to develop." 

“Future orientation is crucial for a healthy life, both mentally and physically. Many of the people interviewed described ongoing psychosomatic complaints like headaches that were clearly linked to stress and anxiety,” he said. 

Challenges massive 

Etienne Clarson, a Blikkiesdorp resident and community leader campaigning for low-cost housing, told IRIN the area is a “human dumping ground.” 

“We are stuck here because we have nowhere to go, and the challenges we face are massive,” Clarson said. “There are huge problems with crime - people are afraid to leave their homes because they will be robbed. We are far from employment opportunities so no one has money. People are ashamed of their situation, and they have no confidence or self-esteem.” 

The study found the living conditions had significantly influenced social and interpersonal relations, with the lack of privacy having a negative effect on people’s relationships, often resulting in marital problems. Children had no recreational facilities and were exposed to drug- and gang-related activities as young as age five.

However, the study revealed that, in a minority cases, the adversity led to high levels of resilience. “A very small proportion of people showed exceptional resilience when faced by these issues. This manifested itself in community activism, primarily. But it should not be seen as a major positive. If someone gets up after being knocked down, we should keep the focus on why they were knocked down in the first place,” Ahmed said. 

- IRIN Africa

‘We were better off under a bridge’

Homeless people moved to Blikkiesdorp by the City of Cape Town before the World Cup in 2010 say they were better off living under a bridge than they are in the temporary relocation area.

Simon Lule, 36, from Tanzania, lived under a bridge in Woodstock. He said Blikkiesdorp is just a “dump site”.

“They don’t care about us as long as we’re off the street. There’s no service for us… This place is not safe, we’re suffering,” said Lule.

Blikkiesdorp was designed as “temporary emergency accommodation” for a period of about seven years.

Ernest Sonnenberg, mayoral council member for human settlements, said the 1 742 structures in Blikkiesdorp housed about four to five people each.

“An additional 75 units have been built for qualifying emergency cases,” said Sonnenberg.

Lule said Blikkiesdorp residents got little to no services from the city.

“A house in the corner of P Block was burning and we called for the fire engine… no one came. Residents put out the fire,” said Lule.

Moegamad Titus, 52, who also lived under a bridge in Woodstock, lives in a unit with his wife and his six-month-old baby. Titus likened Blikkiesdorp to a concentration camp.

“Would those people in Parliament like it if they were taken from there and brought here to live with almost six children in one room?” asked Titus.

“We can’t go anywhere, we must just stay here. They don’t even make transport accessible to us. We’re suffering here,” he said.

Priscilla Adams, 35, who lives in a unit with her four children, said services were “poor” and there were no work opportunities in the area.

“Here, even 50c is too hard to get, but if we were under the bridge we wouldn’t even have to walk 15 minutes to find something to do.

“Metro police take their time to come when matters are reported. My one-year-old is sick with TB because of the poor living conditions,” said Adams.

Lule said people from Blikkiesdorp were not treated with the same respect as other citizens.

Richard Bosman, the city’s director for safety and security, said law enforcement officers were trained to treat everyone with “respect and dignity”. “If our officers are approached by people who are feeling ill, they will immediately request the necessary medical assistance.”

Lule said health care was one of the area’s biggest problems.

“Every week someone is sick or dying here. Ambulances take a long time to come, and sometimes they get here when patients are already dead.”

The city’s human settlement’s directorate is investigating possible development in the Delft area, which will include Blikkiesdorp.

Sonnenberg said the city, provincial government and the Airports Company of SA were still in discussions about the upgrade.

- Cape Argus

High court bid to halt N2 Gateway tenders

A development consortium has obtained a Western Cape High Court order to halt tenders for the construction of homes at two N2 Gateway project precincts.

Ibuyile Development Consortium alleges that the rights that are the subject of the tenders were awarded to it in 2005.

The high court interdicted the government from awarding the tenders until February 22, when it will formally hear the application, lodged by Ibuyile and Sea Kay Property Development - the company appointed to construct homes in two of the project's precincts.

The government has until tomorrow to file its opposing papers.

The N2 Gateway Project was initiated in 2004 by the City of Cape Town, the Western Cape government and the national government to alleviate the housing shortage.

In an affidavit before the court, Sea Kay director Pieter van der Schyf said the city awarded a tender to Ibuyile in May 2005 for construction work at Delft Symphony precincts 1 to 6.

He said Ibuyile had put "considerable effort" into the project and had, to date, completed and handed over more than 3 200 homes.

However, he said that the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements gave notice in December of two tenders to build homes and amend services in precincts 3 and 5 of the project.

If the government was allowed to award the tender, the rights previously awarded to Ibuyile would be rendered of no value and the construction of homes stood to be jeopardised, he said.

Ibuyile intends to institute court proceedings relating to the tender issue, but approached the high court to interdict the award of the tender pending the outcome of those proceedings.

Explaining the background to precincts 3 and 5, Van der Schyf said the precincts were treated differently in 2006 when First Rand Bank (FRB) became involved.

Van der Schyf explained that the national Department of Housing entered into a memorandum of understanding with FRB in terms of which FRB undertook to participate in and support governmental plans for sustainable integrated housing development and settlements.

Precincts 3 and 5 were identified to fill the gap market - for beneficiaries too poor to afford houses of their own and not poor enough to qualify for subsidised housing. FRB was to finance the construction and become a bond holder.

A joint venture agreement was entered into between BVI, Ibuyile, Sea Kay and M5 Housing.

All rights and obligations of the joint venture were transferred to BVI in October 2008.

Ibuyile transferred its rights in respect of precincts 3 and 5 to the joint venture for R31.65 million.

Sea Kay was the entity appointed to construct the houses and FRB was to provide funding.

Construction of the first batch of houses started in March 2008.

However, FRB was unable to pass development bonds over provincial land and eventually brought an application to liquidate BVI.

After a provisional liquidation order was granted, the appointed liquidators instituted an action in Gauteng in which they claimed repayment of the R31m in consideration for alienation of the rights.

The liquidators' case, according to Van der Schyf, was that BVI did not receive the rights.

He said that, if the liquidators were correct, the rights remained vested in Ibuyile.

"The right of the provincial authorities to award a tender for the construction of homes in precincts 3 and 5 was alienated by the award of the tender to Ibuyile in 2005. The provincial authorities accordingly cannot award the tender," Van der Schyf said.

Van der Schyf added that, even if the liquidators were not correct, Sea Kay enjoyed an interest in the rights through its participation in the joint venture, and an interdict would still be necessary in order to protect its interests.

He said that beneficiaries would be affected if a new appointment was made.

- Cape Argus

Where are our houses? – evictees

Only 10 families have been moved to formal housing from Blikkiesdorp since its establishment as a Temporary Relocation Area (TRA) three years ago, the City of Cape Town has confirmed.

The remaining residents are on the city’s housing waiting list, which stands at 386 590.

Ernest Sonnenberg, mayoral committee member for housing, said it was not known how many people on the list actually qualified for a housing subsidy or already owned property elsewhere in the country – which would disqualify them in terms of the national allocation policy.

In the past year, 7 700 housing “opportunities” had been made available to people, said Sonnenberg.

He was not clear on how many people were actually moved into houses.

Now Blikkiesdorp residents fear they may never leave the TRA and realise their dream of living in “real” houses.

When it was built early in 2008, the city said the TRAs provided “medium term” temporary accommodation for people in emergency situations.

The first of the 1 680 families moved into the TRA on May 9 2008 after they were evicted from the N2 Gateway projects where they had illegally occupied houses.

The first occupants were given 18m2 wood and iron structures with electricity. One toilet and one standpipe was to be shared between four families.

A group of 136 families refused to move into the TRA, which became known as Blikkiesdorp, and squatted on the Symphony Way pavement in protest for two years. They claimed the TRA was crime ridden and not fit for families with children. After a lengthy court battle, the last of the families moved into Blikkiesdorp in November 2009.

On a recent Cape Argus visit to Blikkiesdorp, residents expressed unhappiness at being kept in the dark about when they would be moved into houses.

Community leader Jane Roberts said that last month residents had tried to invade empty houses in Delft, also part of the N2 Gateway project. Their attempts had been foiled by police and 11 people had been arrested.

They are expected to appear in the Bellville Magistrates’ Court on August 4.

Roberts said people had acted out of frustration.

“For some people, it’s been three years. This was supposed to be temporary. We should have been in a housing project by now,” said Roberts.

She said that while they now had electricity, sanitation, water and a play park for the children, they were much happier living on the pavement.

“This place has changed people. The sense of community has faded away. This place was never meant to be lived in,” said Roberts.

Sonnenberg said several lessons had been learned from the Blikkiesdorp situation and these had helped the city in its establishment of the new Mfuleni TRA near the old Faure Road.

The relocations started in May and ended last week.

Most of the residents moved there by the city were Mfuleni backyarders and flood victims from the area. The Mfuleni TRA has 384 structures

.

Sonnenberg said the size of the structures had been increased from 18m2 to 24m2, and more resilient material had been used in building them. Each structure has its own toilet and wash basin inside.

A Mfuleni community leader, Xolani Mqikela, said his new home was “much better” than the waterlogged shack he had lived in before.

He said many of the residents were happy with their homes and didn’t mind living there for a while.

“We just hope that we get houses, and we’re not left here permanently,” said Mqikela.

- Cape Argus

Relocating Blikkiesdorp residents may take 5 years

City of Cape Town officials on Tuesday estimated that it will take between three and five years to find a permanent housing solution for residents in Blikkiesdorp.

The temporary relocation area near Delft was set up four years ago.

More than 6,000 people live in corrugated iron structures.

Eyewitness News spoke to several residents recently and many expressed dissatisfaction with their living conditions.

The city’s Housing Director Hans Smit said officials are working on relocating the residents.

“Blikkiesdorp is in fact a temporary relocating area. What we’re intending to do is as part of that project sorting out various informal settlements around the airport. We intend de-densifying the Blikkiesdorp TRA,” he said.

- Eyewitness News

On the other side of the mountain

Southeasters are in Cape Town's contradictory DNA. On Long Street and surrounds the wind is usually flirting with the hemlines of short-skirted blonde Euro-travellers or messing up the hair of messed-up hipsters. Another yawned accompaniment to the beautiful setting draped with beautiful ones.

Along Symphony Way, a stretch of road in Delft, to the north of the city, behind the airport and far removed from the shadow of Table Mountain, the wind is more palpable -- everything is already exposed here.

On a slow day the wind makes the ubiquitous white dust move in mini-dervish whirls on the tar. On harsher ones, it connives with the sand and the sun to ensure that the experiences of those dumped here -- the poor, those to be forgotten -- are inextricable from the lines on their faces.

Situated along this unforgiving stretch with a few bushes apparently yielding litter rather than any fruit is the Symphony Way "temporary relocation area", built by the city's Democratic Alliance-run municipality in 2007 at a cost of more than R30-million. It is also known as "Blikkiesdorp" (Tin-Can Town), Silver Town or just plain Blikkies.

It is a dumping ground for humans. Somalis and other foreigners who survived the 2008 xenophobic attacks and then outlived the expiration date on their original refugee camps are here, as are some street kids cleansed from Cape Town before the World Cup -- ironically, others have since been evicted.

Illegal occupation


There are Delft backyard dwellers who, at the instigation of then DA councillor Frank Martin (he was expelled from the party over the incident), occupied unfinished N2 Gateway project houses across the road, were evicted and then proceeded to occupy, for almost two years, the pavements in protest. They were, in November last year, ordered by the courts to move, pretty much, across the stretch to Blikkies. They're all in there. And then some.

There are more than 1 600 18m2 units -- much smaller than a shipping container -- some with as many as nine or 10 people living in them.

Thirty-two-year-old Shahieda Isaacs's four children are mopping up the remains of their mutton curry and roti when I join her and two other community members for supper in her rectangular box of a home.

The food, cooked in a tiny kitchen semi-partitioned from a larger sleeping area, is delicious. Isaacs sends her 12-year-old off to buy a litre of cool drink from the local spaza.

Spazas line Blikkiesdorp and it is apparent that here, as in informal settlements around the country, a hyper-localised economy exists. Money circulates among the poor, rather than being siphoned off by large supermarket chains -- largely because expensive and unsafe public transport and a lack of penetrative will by these chains makes them inaccessible to the poor.

It is a perversely positive result of ghettoisation in a time of economic recession.

Blikkiesdorp's children


Isaacs says it's difficult trying to raise her children -- two boys and two girls -- in such a claustrophobic space. Her ­daughters share one bunk bed, her sons the other, while she shares the main bed -- piled high with washed and neatly ironed clothes -- with her husband, Ridwaan.

There is no privacy here and Isaacs is concerned that by the time the government eventually moves the family into a house (in 2016, they say, but she isn't holding her breath) her children will be hitting puberty.

"If you think about it, it's heartbreaking, but you don't give up hope," says Isaacs.

Ridwaan is unemployed and Isaacs earns R850 a week cooking lunch for a company in Epping, of which R70 a week goes on her transport costs, which she says she tries to offset by baking koeksisters to sell every Sunday.

Isaacs says her biggest expense is clothes for her children but how has she been coping with the rising costs of pretty much everything?

"We get by like we always do. I'm lucky because my children never go to bed with an empty stomach, like other children. You just get by, but the main thing is that all my children's school fees are paid. That is the most important thing," says Isaacs.

There is a matter-of-fact determination in Blikkiesdorp -- and some ingenuity too.

At some point I stumbled across an inflatable pool near the hok (shack) of Lamees Solomons (29).

Nothing to do


Solomons and her husband, Shamiel, say the pool is for the "children in the camp. Most of these kids really battle, man, so we try to do what we can." The children in Blikkiesdorp have perennially runny noses from the dust and there is a sense of perpetual boredom about them: aside from the gravel, litter and mangy dogs, there is nothing here. And nothing to do.

Solomons says she has two informal fruit and vegetable stalls and also sells perfume. Her business is doing well, so the couple buys and prepares food for the children here twice a week.

"We're community, mos, we're family, so we must do what we can to help one another. Sometimes there are hundreds of children here for the food," says Solomons.

Earlier in the week Ashraf Cassiem, erstwhile chairperson of the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), stood over a shallow hole in the pavement along Symphony Way: "Man, this is where we used to make a fire, this was where my tent was! I still lay in bed at night picturing those times," says Cassiem, beaming.

The memories of the AEC-organised occupation and barricade of Symphony Way from February 2008 until November last year by the 139 families who protested their evictions from the N2 Gateway and the lack of decent housing options sends an obvious rush through Cassiem.

He mainlines anti-establishment activism and is a hyperactive mixture of Che Guevara's revolutionary tendencies and Bugs Bunny's mischievousness; an ever-present cigarette replacing the cigar and carrot.

Cassiem's is a large grin, toothless on one side of his mouth: a restructuring courtesy, he says, of the police sticking in the boot on October 18 2000, when Cassiem, with community members of Tafelsig in Mitchell's Plain, united to stop a neighbour, Charles Lategaan, from being evicted from the house he rented from the government.

The formation of the AEC


They were met with police brutality. Six people were arrested that day and -- at a time when government's 1996 economic policy shift towards Gear (growth, employment and redistribution) was increasingly causing the poor to fall behind in their electricity, water and rental payments -- 17 families in the area were evicted.

But it was an act of community resistance that would lead to the formation, a month later, of the AEC, a radical, anarchic, self-confessedly "crazy" umbrella body for 10 community organisations in areas such as Gugulethu, Hanover Park and Mitchell's Plain.

The AEC fights against evictions, water cut-offs, poor health services and for better housing and free electricity for the poor. As Cassiem describes it, the AEC is about contradictions and "living politics" where the interests of affected communities -- rather than those of academics, NGOs and funders, as is sometimes the case with leftie social movements -- are paramount.

"The AEC is an idea. Ever changing. It is an organisation that is not an organisation. Something that listens to nobody, but listens to everybody," says Cassiem.

So, is the AEC the face of a brave new world being determined by the poor? Cassiem laughs. There is nothing new or brave about being poor or struggling for something better, he says: "It is what people do and have been doing for hundreds of years just to stay alive.

"Middle-class people may feel insecure now because of what is happening [economically around the world] but we have always been living with insecurity," he says.

According to Cassiem, the strategies and tactics the AEC uses are not especially of this time, but honed over a longer trajectory that goes back to community activism against apartheid.

With coffin-bearing marches on government officials, land occupations and events such as the Poor People's World Cup that was held in protest during Fifa's tournament, there are also actions more vital to the everyday.

Stealing basic rights


The AEC reconnects water and electricity for those who have been cut off because of arrears. It holds workshops to teach families how to spread the methods to access what is considered a basic right. It is, admittedly, becoming harder with the introduction of pre-paid electricity meters, but Cassiem says there is a way around those too -- it's more dangerous and includes having to scale electricity poles, but there is always a way around these things.

There is also very physical resistance. I am sitting in the four-roomed government home in Mitchell's Plain of Siyaam Cassiem, Ashraf's mother, with whom the 43-year-old activist lives, with his sister, Faranaaz, and her adult son.

Cassiem is shooting the breeze with Izaan Fredericks, a bra (brother) from the community who would prefer I didn't use his real name. Fredericks is trying to kill time and keep his mind off the craving to smoke tik (methamphetamine) -- from which, he says, he's been clean for almost two weeks.

In walks Boeta Whitey, a retired caretaker, coming from a local primary school -- where he used to work -- bitching because he was unable to get a grandchild's report card because the school fees had not been paid. From Boeta Whitey's vivid Afrikaans description of his conversation with the school secretary, it sounds as though Franz Kafka might be sweating in his grave.

The conversation shifts to Boeta Whitey and his unpaid bills. Fredericks remembers warding off the municipal workers who had come to cut off Boeta Whitey's water supply: "Sometimes you choose a knife and your most evil look, get a couple of the bigger guys around and just stand in front of the door and don't let them in," he says. Boeta Whitey laughs.

More seriously, Cassiem talks passionately about how community activism has facilitated social ­cohesion, roping in gangsters as sentinels to keep a lookout for the police when illegal connections were happening and keeping bored unemployed youths active, away from drugs and giving them some purpose -- and hope.

"There were times when we would just all get together and sleep in and in front of the house to stop them from being evicted," he says.

I join Cassiem on an errand while Fredericks mumbles something about visiting a nearby neighbour and wanders off with a promise to meet later. Later never arrives, Fredericks having never arrived at the neighbour's house.

A state of turmoil
There is a listlessness to both Cassiem and how the movement is defining and articulating itself on the ground during the time I spent with him in Cape Town.

The movement appears to be in a state of turmoil: a press release had just gone out announcing a new executive leadership and accusing Cassiem of corruption.

Cassiem denies the accusations, saying this is part of an attempt by various academics and funders to "hijack the movement".

"People want to control the AEC, but they don't understand that it is uncontrollable … This hijacking feels kak, because I know these people and have struggled with them. It feels like a knife in the back, but you're not dying," says Cassiem.

While this sideshow unfolds, Cassiem says it's "distracting from fighting the struggle; instead we're fighting among ourselves".

The AEC has also been using the law to fight against evictions, and for housing. But Cassiem believes that the "law still exists to protect evictions -- it happens eventually".

He is dismissive of Constitutional Court judgments such as in the Irene Grootboom and Joe Slovo cases -- the latter involving the AEC -- saying the "judgments coming out of the Con Court aim to show that the judges are listening to us, but that's it".

But the AEC does have a guerrilla approach to the law and how it can be manipulated. Its members rock up at local magistrates' courts, check out the court roll for eviction cases and then -- often to the surprise of those facing evictions -- present themselves as legal counsel.

Cassiem says the aim is to "frustrate and prolong evictions and to prevent default judgments because people aren't aware of their rights, not even in courts, or, worse still, [are] bullied by their lawyers into accepting an eviction".

Passing a smoke
Cassiem is reflecting on the role of the law in his mother's sitting room in Mitchell's Plain. He exhales the smoke from his cigarette, leans over and offers her an entjie (a puff).

It is a moment that I have seen shared between mother and son on several occasions, and shared between people in Blikkies, in Mitchell's Plain, in Bel Har and in Hout Bay hundreds of times. Loose cigarettes are cheaper when passed around.

That night the crescent moon hovers over Hout Bay's Hangberg informal settlement. The shacks, perched high on the hill, shudder to some big-beat dub music.

A mere two months previously, in September, the community had been in violent conflict with the municipality after the City of Cape Town tore down shacks built along a fire break and attempted to evict residents. Petrol bombs and rubber bullets were exchanged with abandon. Arrests and injuries mounted and, before calm returned, it appeared as though Gaza had been brought to Hout Bay, say residents.

Yet, on a December Thursday night, through a side door that misleadingly appeared to be the entrance to a shack, more than 300 people were crammed into a large dancehall called the Red Lion.

Rastas were flaying the air with their dreadlocks, marijuana was being cleaned in vast quantities on tabloid newspapers and bottleneck pipes were being stuffed and blazed on the dance floor.

Almost every informal settlement in Cape Town has its own "Dub Session", apparently, but Hangberg's is especially cherished because of the expansive views from the informal settlement's club over Hout Bay harbour. And the hard-as-nails beats.

Was this the brave new world?

I am reminded that there is nothing heroic, or new, about people getting on with their lives by what appears a Sonic the Hedgehog-lookalike rasta in that I-and-I Afrikaans patois laced with English so favoured in Cape Town: "I-man, just do what I-man just do," he says.

Source: Mail & Guardian Online

Future of Blikkiesdorp unclear

The City of Cape Town says it cannot specify how much longer Blikkiesdorp residents will have to live in the temporary resettlement area.

The Symphony Way venue was established in 2007 for people who had been evicted from other premises.

But the area has since mushroomed to more than 1,000 corrugated iron houses.

Residents said they have not had any answers from the city about their future.

But the city council’s Kylie Hatton said that is because everything is still up in the air.

"At the moment there’s a possibility of a report back within the next month and then from there it will require an assessment, because we also need to look at zoning, planning, regulations, noise corridor parts - because of Delft’s proximity to the airport as well.”

Meanwhile, residents said their living conditions continue to deteriorate.

“We must do anything to survive in Blikkiesdorp - There’s some ladies that steal," one woman said. Another resident added, "No one is working around here – there’s no income for the people," while there were also complaints that medical help is very far.

Resident Peter Jacobs told Eyewitness News he feels hopeless.

“The condition we’re living in is very bad – especially in the winter it’s very cold, wet. It rains right through the houses,” he said.

- Eyewitness News

Cape Town squatters battle plans for Muslim hotel

The BBC's Mohammed Allie reports on a historic disused quarry, the last piece of vacant urban space on the edge of Cape Town's central business district, which has become the subject of a dispute between 150 squatters who live there and one of South Africa's oldest mosques that wants to build a Muslim-friendly hotel on the land.

Nestled in the quarry above Cape Town, the informal settlement known as the Kraal has sweeping views of South Africa's iconic Table Mountain and the city's trendy Waterfront and harbour areas.

The area, first occupied by squatters in the early 1980s, has grown to accommodate 24 shacks housing 150 people, including many children.

“It's against the scripture of all religions to evict poor people from their homes” - Osman Shabodien Bo Kaap Civic Association chair

In recent months, several newcomers have erected plastic and corrugated iron dwellings in a narrow slit of ground about 100m away from the main camp.

The mosque authorities, led by Imam Moutie Saban, have complained about rising crime in the area. Tourists have been robbed and cars and houses broken into.

The mosque's sound system has been stolen and toilet facilities smeared with faeces.

The city's law enforcement authorities say the Kraal has been used as a hideout by criminals escaping police.

"Yes, we have had a criminal element and drug dealers but they have been arrested and are now in prison," says Kraal community leader Kenny Prins.

Infuriated
Imam Saban wants the area upgraded and has applied to the city council, which owns the land, to build a no-alcohol hotel, along with a business centre and a heritage centre on ground, which adjoins the back part of the historic Jameah mosque.

Community leader Kenny Prins says squatter residents must be given proper housing
The mosque, which was built in 1790 on land provided by the British colonial authorities, was the first to perform Friday congregational prayers in South Africa.

The mosque has already bought the house next door and wants to extend prayer facilities and the toilet block to accommodate the increasing number of worshippers.

Belinda Walker, city councillor for the area, confirmed receiving an unsolicited application to develop the land from Imam Saban and his son Wafeeq.

"Last year Imam Saban and his son came to see me about their proposal to extend the mosque. They proposed a development on the site of the quarry which would cross-subsidise their upgrade because of the high cost of the renovation.

“I have been on the council's waiting list for 17 years but to this day I'm still waiting for my house” - Mareldia Abrahams Kraal resident

"They said funding was available to build a Muslim-friendly hotel which would serve no alcohol and would meet the dietary needs of Muslim visitors. It would also allow for a separate swimming pool for females," says Ms Walker.

But the proposal has infuriated the Kraal community, as well as local residents represented by the Bo Kaap Civic Association.

"It's against the scripture of all religions to evict poor people from their homes, so we need to ensure the residents of the Kraal have access to decent housing before moving them from the site," says Osman Shabodien, chair of the association.

"The area has huge historical and heritage significance, so whatever we eventually decide to do, it will have to be carefully planned and we need to consult with the surrounding community.

"Any development has to benefit the entire community and not just a few individuals," says Mr Shabodien.

Solid rock
Mr Prins says residents of the informal settlement need to be given proper housing before there can be any thought of developing the land.

Many of the Kraal residents grew up in the area and will not accept being moved to the council's Blikkiesdorp resettlement camp, some 28km (18 miles) away.

Mosque authorities have complained about rising crime in the area
"Our children attend school in the area, so you can't just uproot them," says Mr Prins.

Kraal resident Mareldia Abrahams, a 54-year-old mother of four, says she would be prepared to move should the council provide her with a formal house.

"I have been on the council's waiting list for 17 years but to this day I'm still waiting for my house," says Ms Abrahams.

According to Ms Walker, there are no immediate plans for the land as a long consultation process still has to be followed.

"We are currently busy with a heritage study which will inform us what sort of development is suitable for the ground. We then need to advertise the development proposals for public comment so the entire process will take at least a year," she says.

Ms Walker ruled out providing formal housing on the land for Kraal residents.

"The area is situated on solid rock, which means it will be difficult and very expensive to lay underground sewerage and water connection pipes for council-subsidised housing. There are also up to 250 informal settlements in Cape Town that need our attention," she says.

- BBC

KTC residents up in arms over delivery

RESIDENTS of KTC near Crossroads in Cape Town are unhappy over the slow pace of housing delivery in the area.

KTC's crowded Section Four is home to more than 5000 families, of whom 4000 must be moved so that the area can be upgraded.

Only 259 families have been moved out of KTC so far - to new government houses in Delft, about 15km away.

The KTC Concerned Residents' Movement says ward councillor Gladstone Ntamo is to blame for the delay.

"It will take another five years to upgrade this place if the councillor moves people to Delft at this pace. He moves them one by one," the movement's spokesperson, Ben Londzi, said.

KTC resident Makwenkwe Tengwa also complained about the slowness of the upgrade. He said KTC shack dwellers only wanted houses.

"People here will move anywhere in the city if they are going to get a house there because they have been living in shacks for more than 30 years," he said.

Some of the residents were even part of the historic "Asiyi-Khayelitsha" campaign in the 1980s, when they rose up against the apartheid government's bid to demolish Crossroads and move everyone further out of the city to Khayelitsha.

Ntamo said he was not to blame for the slow pace of delivery, because the city of Cape Town and provincial government were calling the shots.

"The pace is too slow and I have even said so to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale," Ntamo said.

"I was promised that 757 people would be moved to new houses in Delft, but they are only moving them two at a time."

Provincial Housing Department spokesperson Zalisile Mbali also said Ntamo was not to blame.

"The councillor is only there to monitor and assist during relocation," Mbali said.

The City of Cape Town's Roger Carney said the national government's Housing Development Agency was to blame because it allocated houses in Delft for KTC residents.

"There is a misconception around the upgrading of KTC. We are dependent on the agency who gives us space to move people to. They do not allocate enough space. This is frustrating for all of us including the residents and the councillor," said Carney.

The agency would only say that they are busy with a number of projects to relocate KTC residents.

- Sowetan

Hangberg caught in a crossfire of law enforcement and lack of planning

Lying on his bed in a two-roomed shack shared by his parents and his sister, Delon Egypt is recovering from eye surgery he received last week at Groote Schuur hospital.Egypt is one of four members of Hout Bay’s Hangberg community who lost an eye due to rubber bullets being fired at them by police during violent clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday last week when the City of Cape Town demolished shacks erected in a firebreak on Hout Bay’s Sentinel Hill – land owned by the South African National Parks.

Another man was badly injured by a rubber bullet that hit him in the groin.

Despite the surgery, Egypt still has the rubber bullet lodged in his skull. As a result he experienced his first fit and fears there will be more. He is not sure what further medical surgery will be required.

Quietly, he tells his version of what happened on the day he lost his left eye.

Waking up on Tuesday September 21, he walked down the hill to buy cigarettes and bread for his family.

He said he saw tyres burning and police Casspirs crawling up the hill from the harbour.

And then all hell broke loose.

“Police just took their guns out and shot at people. People were not throwing stones. It was only after police shot that people stated throwing rocks.

“I turned around and all I heard was a big bang in my head.” With blood gushing from his eye, he started vomiting.

He said soon thereafter he and his father were violently assaulted and forced into a Casspir by police and taken to the Hout Bay police station. They were detained there for three hours and only given a bandage for his wound.

When other detained residents requested that police assist him, “all they said was : ‘F*k, laat hom daar le’.”

“I can’t describe the feeling that I have,” said Egypt.

His, and other residents’ version of events is being disputed by City mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, who produced photographic evidence that those injured by rubber bullets were attacking law enforcement officials.

Hout Bay police station communications officer Tanya Lesch said there was photographic evidence showing Egypt was taken to a police Casspir by his father to receive medical attention.

Additionally, she said, when she was alerted to his condition when he was detained she called paramedics who told her he had been treated.

Lesch said she also arranged for an ambulance to come.

However, Egypt personal situation reveals why access to land and housing is such a volatile issue for the Hangberg community.

At 22-years-old and unemployed, home is a two-roomed wooden shack shared with his older sister and his parents.

Like hundreds of other young men in the community, he needs independence and a place of his own.

But with no access to formal housing, they have little option but to illegally encroach on vacant land.

Development Action Group Programme Director Ardiel Soeker and Chief Executive Officer Kailash Bhana state that Hangberg was established above the Hout Bay harbour in the 1940’s when state housing was provided to house harbour workers.

It has not been subject to inward migration but the population has grown naturally over the intervening 70 years.

While residents have been allowed to erect their own homes behind the council flats, it wasn’t “an ad-hoc solution applied by the local authority to a growing problem in Hangberg”.

No permanent, long term planning has been applied to the area and the community has had a hard time.

Overlooked by an ANC government who did not see the ‘coloured’ community as part of their voting constituency, the community, many of them reliant on the fishing industry, had to absorb the indignity of a fishing quota system that resulted in job losses and inter-community competition for what was left after big fishing companies were handed the lion’s share.

Now, expanding organically up the slopes of the hill upon which they live, they have come under fire, literally, from the DA-run city.

“This is our land. Our forefathers stayed here. They already took our land before. Where are we supposed to go?” said 32 year old Joanne Hendricks who shares a shack with her partner and their five children in the firebreak. Should the city get the eviction order requested from the Cape High Court, the Hendricks family will see their home torn down.

And residents say last week’s police brutality was outrageous, and have requested a commission of enquiry into police conduct.

“This police brutality is unacceptable,” said religious leader Father Godfrey Walton who helped to organize a peaceful rally for today (Sunday Oct 3) when residents will march to the Hout Bay police station to hand over a memorandum.

Walton, relayed the story of a 14 year old boy who was allegedly assaulted and detained in a Casspir last week.

“The policeman had his firearm pointed at the boy’s private parts. ‘I can kill you and dump your body in Langa. Thank god your mother is here, otherwise you would have been half way through the tunnel,’ This is what a policeman told the boy,” he said.

As it is, Hangberg is in a decrepit state. Many of the shacks do not have toilets and residents have to resort to either the few City-provided toilets, (many of which have become blocked) or the bucket system.

This government strategy “whether a result of lack of planning or a deliberate strategy to prevent poor people’s access to good land for housing, is the trigger for many informal settlement and backyard dwellers struggles, as in Hangberg,” wrote Soeker and Bhana.

Although the City has plans approved in 2008 to upgrade Hangberg, and has acquired one hectare of land adjacent to Hangberg at a cost of R8million where they intend to build high density low-income housing, residents say it’s happening too slowly.

“All these years we have been promised houses but nothing is happening,” said one resident who asked not to be named.

The City claims that the erection of informal structures has hampered the upgrading process. According to the City an agreement was struck between the community and then mayor Helen Zille that in order for upgrading to take place, no more informal structures would be erected.

But most residents say there was no agreement, and despite their desperate circumstances, few are willing to leave Hangberg.

“I will never leave this place,” affirmed a 61-year-old woman who has three adult children living in Hangberg.

Residents opposition to city law-enforcement efforts is also due to the perception that the local government has its eye on the land. They fear that once upgrading takes place, they will be kicked out and dumped in far-off settlements like Blikkiesdorp and Delft on the Cape Flats.

“They just want our votes and this million dollar view,” said Egypt, referring to the spectacular view which residents have of the harbor and the sea.

– West Cape News

Squatters refuse to make way for hotel

SHACK dwellers of a Cape Town informal settlement with a magnificent view of the sea say they will not move until they get decent houses.

The controversial camp in upmarket Bo-Kaap, situated at the foot of Signal Hill, offers a magnificent view of the city centre, Green Point Stadium and the harbour.

The camp has been there for more than 12 years, but now the squatters have accused the local imam of colluding with city authorities to kick them out and build a Muslim hotel on the land.

Camp leader Kenny Prins said his people would resist being moved to the temporary relocation area of Blikkiesdorp in Delft, about 28km from the city centre.

"These people won't survive in Blikkiesdorp. They need a decent place in the city centre," Prins said.

"We have a hotel for Arabs on Wales Street just near us, which should be enough. We won't move."

He accused the city of trying to take over the area because "it offers the best view of the city".

He said when the ANC was in charge of the province they got electricity and toilets, "but the current DA government has done nothing to improve our situation".

Prins said there were 24 shacks in the camp, and about 150 people living there.

Keyammondien Dalwai from Manenberg said he was worried about his sister who lived in the camp with her four little children.

"Keep them in Bo-Kaap. I feel hurt by this," he said.

DA ward councillor Belinda Hawker said the Imam at the mosque had proposed enlarging the mosque in order to accommodate more people.

Later, she said, he changed and applied to build a hotel for Muslim visitors from abroad. His proposal has not yet been approved as it has to be advertised widely, she said.

Hawker also said that a heritage study was currently being conducted on the site to determine whether any developments were suited for the site.

If the squatters were to be moved that would be in line with the government's housing policies, she said.

"The Bo-Kraal community is not under threat at all," she said.

- Sowetan