Category Archives: SOHCO

Evicted Valley View Residents (Hillary) to Protest Realllocation of their Flats Tomorrow

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30 November 2011

Evicted Valley View Residents (Hillary) to Protest Realllocation of their Flats Tomorrow

Tomorrow the flats of the 77 people evicted from the Valley View flats in Hillary by SOHOC will be given to new tenants. The evicted residents will protest by holding a picket line in front of their flats. They will appeal to a sense of solidarity from the new tenants and they wish to make it very clear that crossing a picket line and moving into the home of an evicted person is no different to crossing a picket line and scabbing at a strike.

The evicted residents are demanding that they be allowed to return to their flats and they are warning that they will not give up this struggle until they have been able to return to their homes.

The evicted residents also wish to note that SOHOC has failed to govern these flats properly and that, therefore, the residents must be allowed to take over the governance of the flats on their own by forming a cooperative. The private part of this so called ‘public-private partnership’ must be expelled from the project and it must become a partnership between the state and the resident’s cooperative.

The evicted residents also wish to note that they are prepared for everyone to pay the same rent, the rent that was agreed to first, which is R850 per month (excluding lights and water) but that they cannot afford to pay the new rent.

The evicted residents also wish to note that each citizen in South Africa that is eligible for access to state housing gets a housing subsidy. That subsidy usually goes towards an RDP house. In their case it went towards the ‘public-private partnership’ that built the Valley View flats and collects the rent for the flats. But now that the 77 residents have been evicted they are told that they are not eligible for RDP houses because they have already accessed their subsidy. While SOHOC is making a profit and calling itself a ‘non-profit organisation’ they have been evicted and their right to housing has been taken from them. The capitalists that have invested in SOHCO have taken their subsidies but they are left homeless and with no other options.

If there have to be further negotiations the evicted residents must be allowed to collect their post from the flats and they must be removed from the credit bureau black list.

The evicted residents are also requesting that the public protector investigate SOHCO. Thuli Madonsela has won the confidence of the people and she can be trusted to investigate SOHCO fairly.

Comrades visiting Durban for the COP 17 conference are welcome to join the picket line at the Valley View flats in Hillary. If the police are bought in to break up the picket line the evicted residents will return their protests to the SOHCO offices.

Contact Details:

S’fiso: 079 818 1987
Nomfundo: 082 541 0855

Daily News: Tenants protest against eviction

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http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/tenants-protest-against-eviction-1.1189139

Tenants protest against eviction

Desperate evicted tenants of Valley View housing complex in Hillary appealed to their landlord’s conscience on Tuesday.

This was during their demonstration outside the landlord’s offices on the Jan Smuts Highway under heavy police presence and private security.

The tenants were evicted from the partly goverment-funded housing early this month for unpaid rent, following protracted court battle with landlord Sohco, a non-profit company. The tenants claim they were wrongly evicted as the rental agreed on was not the same as the one that appeared on their leases.

“Most tenants who were evicted are single parents and most are women. When they evicted us, some of our children had already started writing exams. When they arrived at the flat and saw all those cops with guns, some of them just cried,” said one of the tenants, Nomfundo Mdluli.

She said the leases they had signed were blank, with no amount written in the space where the rental should have been. “After a month living in the flats, we had to demand our leases back and when we got these back, the rent price had been filled in ink. This was not the R850 that was agreed upon initially,” she said.

Mdluli said that after three months, the rent was increased and the tenants then decided to stop paying the rent to Sohco and deposit the R850 into a trust account until Sohco was able to explain the increase to them.

“When we questioned the blank leases we were signing, we were told that if we don’t want houses, we should step aside and let those who wanted them sign the leases,” she said.

“I was one of the people who knew nothing about the eviction… I got a phone call from my neighbours telling me that my stuff was being moved out of my place and that they were all sent SMSes about the eviction,” said Mdluli.

However, Sohco chief executive Heather Maxwell denied the allegations about the blank leases, saying that they were not even sure that the tenants who were demonstrating were those who had been evicted.

“Prior to anyone taking occupation, formal written leases stating the value of rentals due were signed,” she said.

Maxwell said a deposit and the first month’s rental had been paid in advance by everyone before occupation. Most tenants had paid rent for at least six months before being influenced to stop doing so.

“Formal written notice was delivered by the sheriff of the court to the evicted tenants,” she said.

Maxwell said Sohco had not been aware of the trust that the tenants were referring to until the company took the matter to court. She said the eviction was tested at the high court with appeal attempts at the Supreme Court, and the evictions were upheld.

Occupy SOHCO Tomorrow

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28 November 2011

SOHCO and the Private Destruction of the Right to Public Housing

Four weeks ago 77 people were evicted from the Valley View flats in Hillary. These flats are owned by SOHCO which is a social housing company. Social housing was set up to cover those who don’t qualify for RDP houses but are too poor to qualify for bonds. It is called a ‘public private partnership’. But the private side of this arrangement has taken over the public side. Tenants are being exploited by paying rentals that will, over their lives, be worth much more than the value of the flats and those that are falling behind are being evicted. They remain unable to get RDP houses and unable to get housing through the market and are therefore being excluded from access to housing. Social housing is therefore failing and it will continue to fail until the alliance between the government and private investors looking to make private profit is abandoned and replaced with an alliance between the government and co-operatives of people needing housing.

On Saturday night 50 of the evicted people returned to the flats to occupy them. The police succeeded in forcing them out again. They were repulsed again on Sunday night. They evicted Hillary residents have now decided to go and occupy SOHCO at their offices in 490 Jan Smut Highway (Mayville) on 29 November 2011 at 13:00pm

Comrades visiting Durban for the COP 17 conference are welcome to join the occupation.

Contact Details:

S’fiso: 079 818 1987
Nomfundo: 082 541 0855