Category Archives: ABSA

GroundUp: Bank drives woman to brink of homelessness

http://www.groundup.org.za/content/bank-drives-woman-brink-homelessness

Bank drives woman to brink of homelessness

By Jared Sacks, GroundUp

Kutala Mtyali's sits on the couch of her house, perhaps for the last day, and tries to piece together the ongoing saga of her 26 year struggle to keep her home. Family members help her with names and dates. She is on the brink of homelessness.

While the details of this story are unique, evictions of the poor and lower middle class have become a national crisis – one that tends to favour what housing activists perceive to be the greedy and often-times illegal lending practices of South Africa's banks.

This story is not simple. Its spans more than three decades starting out in a tiny shack in Crossroads from which she was eventually forcibly removed. In 1987, she built her home in A Section, Khayelitsha, after receiving permission, by the City of Cape Town, to settle on the serviced site ERF 105. She received a letter giving her the rights through a 99 year lease, to live and build on the property. Today, a trespassing charge could, if a magistrate gets his way, result in her eviction once again.

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