(For the archive)
http://www.sundaytribune.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3498073
Front Page
A house is no castle in the sky
October 22, 2006 Edition 1
Doreen Premdev
Nonhlanhla Mzobe was born in a shack in Kennedy Road, Clare Estate. For 33 years she has lived with the hope that one day she will have a proper home to raise her four children.
Mzobe and thousands like her are forced to live in informal settlements because they are destitute.
Mzobe, the breadwinner in her family, supports her husband, Sandile Bhengu, and her four children.
She still lives in in Kennedy Road. However, she is adamant she will not face the same fate as her mother, Elizabeth Masika, who died nine years ago at the age of 52, after a short illness.
Masika died waiting for a house.
“People living in informal settlements have begged and pleaded with the municipality for houses, but they have not heard our pleas,” Mzobe said. “Now we demand these houses and when we go into the streets and protest, the municipality calls us ‘criminals’. Are we criminals because we want decent houses to raise our children in?”
Mzobe said over the years more and more people had started building shacks in the Kennedy Road area, which was not safe. Children especially were at risk of being victims of crime and were vulnerable to disease.
‘Safer’
“Thirty-three years ago there were only 40 shacks in Kennedy Road. People lived in an extended family system, unlike now. Life was difficult back then. But even though it was tough, we knew everyone who lived there – it was a much safer and friendlier environment.
“In 1985 the shacks were burnt down and the then municipality promised us low-cost houses. But those were just empty promises. We rebuilt the shacks and continued living there.
“Eleven years ago the government again promised us houses and we made applications for these houses.
“But they too were making empty promises and their only interest was in getting our votes,” she said.
Mzobe said people living in informal settlements were getting frustrated with the “lies” the municipality told to keep them quiet.
She said an organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo (which includes informal settlements in central Durban, Pinetown, Tongaat and Pietermaritzburg, and represents more than 20 000 people), was started last year to address the concerns of the people living in shacks.
Mzobe said another, earlier group had been formed to fight the cause of the shack dwellers, and her mother was part of this organisation.
“My mother was not successful in getting a house. I was her only child and, as a single parent, she battled to raise me. I don’t want this fight to be carried over to the next generation. We have had enough. We don’t want to listen to any more lies.
“We know we cannot get houses overnight. We have been patient, but the municipality must come clean with us. They must tell us when they will give us houses. People are frustrated, because the conditions we live in are inhumane.
“It is very disheartening when the municipality gives us hope and fails to deliver. The municipality officials should spend a day in our lives and see whether they could cope. When people see us protesting on the streets they must think we just want free housing.
The point is the government promised us free houses and we just want what we were promised.
“We are willing and prepared to fight until we die to get these houses,” Mzobe said.
President of Abahlali baseMjondolo, S’bu Zikode, said 7 000 people lived in the shack settlements in Kennedy Road. They share six toilets and five water stand pipes.
In Forman Road (Clare Estate), 8 000 people share two toilets, he said.
‘Urgency’
“The government can spend hundreds of millions of rands on expanding the ICC (International Convention Centre), developing the Point Waterfront area, building new sport stadiums and relocating airports, but they don’t seem to see the urgency in housing the poor.
“The government wants to impress overseas countries during the 2010 World Cup. But it will shock the rest of the world to see how the poorest of poor have to live in this country,” Zikode said.
City Manager Mike Sutcliffe said that the government had delivered 16 000 houses a year to the “truly poor”, and spent R1 billion a year on these houses. Sutcliffe said no other country in the world did this.
“If Abahlali baseMjondolo is trying to compare the expenses for the World Cup, it pales in comparison to expenditure for low-cost housing. Not only is the World Cup providing jobs for hundreds of people, we are building our country at the same time.
“We are aware that 200 000 very poor families require houses, and they are on our priority list. It will take us five to 10 years to meet this backlog,” Sutcliffe said.
doreen.premdev@inl.co.za