Comment on the Slums Bill from Cape Town

Comment on KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Bill, 2006

Submitted By:
Rashieda Matthews- Zille-raine Heights, Grassy Park
Mandy Jacobs- Zille-raine Heights, Grassy Park
Meita Benjamin, Kabaskraal
Lorraine Heunis, Civic Road
Janet Nontan- Khoisan Village
Carl Arendse- Khoisan Village
Adiel Tomlinson- Concerned Residence of Delft
Aisa Zeeman- Concerned Residence of Delft
Ashley Louw- Concerned residents of Delft
Donovan Van Der Heyden – Hangberg Fishing Village, Hout Bay
Kevin Davids – Hangberg Fishing Village, Hout Bay
Koni Benson- ILRIG
Ronald Wesso- ILRIG

This response comes from a discussion held at the International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG) with the above mentioned community leaders of informal settlements in Cape Town, many of whom live in overcrowded backyards, or in open spaces under threat of forced relocation. We have a number of concerns with the Bill, and strongly advise it not be passed as it stand right now.

The Bill miscasts the problem and therefore has a wrong solution

The government must accept that slums will expand as long as housing delivery lags behind the rate of household formation.

Framing the Bill around getting rid of slums, instead of building houses, will not solve the problem of homelessness: it wont serve anyone in the country. There are more children born everyday. More are born than die.

The Bill misrepresents our experiences

We are gravely offended by the wording and implications of the Bill. In particular, the Bill makes a number of assumptions about slum dwellers that are simply not true, and are dangerous suppositions to work from. These include

-shackdwellers as a threat to housing construction programmes.
Our shacks are demolished and we are dumped in far away places that resemble refugee camps- like Happy Valley, where people are given tent poles and tarps where they will wait for houses for another ten years, at least. We resist moving because our experiences show us that these moves are often from bad to worse. We resist moving because we cannot afford the new housing. We resist moving because the state is pitting poor against poor by only providing for some and not all.

The Bill describes us as a disease
We live in desperate conditions. But we reject the terms of the bill that paint us as a disease that must be ‘eliminated.’ Eliminated is about force, and we thought forced removals (especially those justified by talk of ‘sanitation’ and us as filth) were going to end with aparthied.

The words sound like there is a leprosy in the area where those people are.
The Bill uses the word ‘slum’ in a way that makes it sound like the places where poor people live are a problem that must be cleared away but it does not admit that the poor have been made poor but the same history of theft and exploitation that made the rich to be rich and it does not admit that places where poor people live often lack infrastructure and toilets because of the failure of landlords or the government to provide these things.
In this Bill the word ‘slum’ is used to make it sound like the poor and the places where they live are the problem rather than the rich and the way in which they have made the poor to be poor and to be kept poor by a lack of development.

They want to say slums is where all the problems come from like crime and the solution to the problem of crime is to deal with the slum. Eliminate slums, and you eliminate crime. In one superplan.

We are called all these names, it doesn’t sound right, it sounds like we are really invaders doing something wrong. Government must respect us as human beings. We just want to live. Live like they do. Why are they coming with these bad names?

The Constitution says we are all equal. To lable people as ‘slums’ and things like that, its taking away peoples dignity and they are degrading people. It is discriminating against the poor. The wording is illegal.

The term slum, makes it sound like there is something wrong with shackdwellers and their places rather, than highlighting the problem as the system that makes them poor and fails to develop their places. Once a place is called a ‘slum’ it is easy to for the rich and governments to say that it must be ‘cleared’ or ‘eliminated’ but if a place is called a community then it is easier to say that it must be supported and developed.

Invaders? We are not invaders, it’s the cockroaches who are the invaders! We are not the problem.

The Bill reinforces our experiences that the state does not care about us and would rather we disapear. In fact, that it would like to legalize its use of violence to ensure that end.

For example, the proposed Bill would allow Municipalities to evict people when evictions “are in the public interest,” and we would like to ask: are we not part of the public? Do our interests not count?

This Bill is not a statement from government based on the understanding that shackdwellers needing care and support, not violence from the state.

This Bill’s proposal that resisting eviction be met with fines of up to R20 000 or sent to prison for 5 years makes standing up for our rights illegal. What does it suggest we do when we are faced with proposals that will make our situations worse?

We do not choose to live in ‘slums.’

Backyard, starvation in rural homes,

Government is creating the slums.

Often we errect our shacks in open spaces because we want to survive. We are fleeing overcrowded township houses or backyard shack with no privacy and with threats of contracting diseases such as TB, while further burdening other already desperate households, depriving them of their already limited privacy and requesting to share their scarce resources

I was looking for a place cus I was living in my mother-in-lawss garage with 5 people, and no windows. Before that I lived in my mothers house… I’ve been on the waiting list since I got married in 1992. And a few years ago I went to council to ask, and they don’t have our names on the list. So now im on the list as of 2001.

What we need is housing. Not another force pressuring us to disappear.

If I get evicted I’ll go to the pavement because I have no where else. If they tell me I have to go to Happy Valley and I have no alternative, I wont go because it is not a place for a human being to live. It’s a dumping place. I didn’t see a school, a bus stop, a taxi, a factory, or a clinic, a church. Nothing. I cant raise my kids like that. My kids remind me: mommy please we are not going to Happy Valley.

In 2010 if there are no slums, then were will our people go? Are we going to live in the stadium? We cannot accept it.

We rely on the social networks we create in the areas in which we have lived all our lives. With ever increasing unemployment, we cannot afford to move far from anyone we know. Although poor, our children go to school, we share the food we have, our names are on file at local clinics, our churches, and ways of pieces together a living, are tied to the neighborhoods in which we live.

The Bill allows Municipalities to buy or take land to accommodate people that have been evicted while they are waiting for new developments. These are called ‘transit areas’. The Bill does not give any guaranties as to where these ‘transit areas’ will be, what services will be provided there, if communities will be kept together or broken up when people are taken to these places or how long they will have to live in these places.

Our experiences in Cape Town show that these transit areas are usually worse than where people are evicted from. Worse for squatters, that is. There must be guarantee that these transit areas will be close to people’s homes and with proper services.

We can be part of the solution

Our cities should be planned according to human needs, not according to the housing market (market based development). This bill supports the deepening of segregation and makes no space for the poor to be able to participate in planning the future of our cities. However, we are sceptical that our opinions will be taken seriously.

We cannot agree that the government has any right, to not follow the Constitution and make bills for the rich and for themselves. It’s the rich who put them in power. And they are taking care of the rich. We must tell them its unacceptable because our Constitution says differently. Even if we tell them no, they will still go through with it and take this Bill. Only the capitalists have a say.

Is there provision for community leadership engagement in the design of the Bill? They should have full representation from the poor because it will effect poor communities at the end of the day. Wheather we give our opinions or not, maybe it won’t even matter. Unless our leadership engages with them.

The Bill seems to prioritize making the city better for the rich, and justifies punishing the poor. In Cape Town, they want to make this a beautiful city for 2010 and want to push us to the sea so they don’t see us. They are so focused on 2010 and want a beautiful drive on the N2. And all the time the tourists ask, look how people are living, what is the govt doing. It disgraces the government. And foreigners are not fooled.

The government wants us to think we are useless and nothing so that we wont speak. They want us to feel inferior. So they use the word slum, and eliminate.

National Legislation that recognizes our plight

The Constitution, the laws and government policy documents try to create the impression that all levels and institutions of government are committed to justice for women and black people who have suffered and still suffer under sexism and racism. Yet the people victimised by this Bill are all black and the effects of the Bill will be worse for women. It therefore takes us further away from a society based on racial and gender justice.
This particular Bill focuses on how to eliminate and prevent slums but says nothing on how to improve the living condition of those who have to live in such conditions.
We need a Bill that forces all levels of government to
a. deal with the conditions that force people to leave their homes and move to shack settlements
b. immediately provide basic services to shack settlements like toilets, electricity, water and speed bumps while they wait for upgrades or relocations
c. and follow the laws that prevent evictions without a court order, the laws that prevent people from being made homeless in an eviction or to follow the Breaking New Ground Policy that aims to upgrade settlements in situ (where people are already living).
In fact, we HAVE such Bills- we would like to propose then that the state rather follow the existing laws and polices that protect against evictions, forced relocations and which recommend upgrades.

The Constitution, ‘Comprehensive Plan for the Creation of Sustainable Human Settlements: Breaking New Ground’, the 2004 National Housing Code (Chapter 12 on emergency assistance and Chapter 13 on informal settlement upgrading), and the recently launched New Strategic Plan (NST) of the Ministry of Health (31 April 2007), all acknowledge our vulnrability and right to support.

I’m not a legal expert, but it needs to be in line with the Constitution.

A number of important UN Reports also condemn the lack of implementation of these policies in South Africa, and predict a doubling of ‘slum’ dwellers worldwide in the next 15 years.

If provincial legislation is required to eventually achieve the elimination of slums, it must force municipalities to comply with and implement Chapters 12 and 13 of the Housing Code.

The need for slums, is what needs to be eliminated. This means eliminating poverty, not eliminating the poor. The laws and programmes that we and our supporters have fought hard for (like the Grootboom ruling that outlines the need for emergency assistance for those living in desperate conditions) have not been actively implimented by municipalities.

The proposed Bill also contradicts the South African government’s commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals because the UN-Habitat has proved that the first step of reaching the goal of ‘improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020’, is to remove the threat of eviction. The Bill, by mandating municipalities and landowners to institute evictions, does the exact opposite.