HumanRightsDay: The failure by South Africa's municipalities to provide housing for the poor violates a Constitutional Court ruling as well as the Bill of Rights, writes Soraya Beukes.
South Africa’s Constitution protects everyone’s right to access adequate housing. This principle was spelt out in law when the Court issued a landmark ruling in 2000 that stipulated the most vulnerable people – “those living in extreme conditions of poverty, homelessness or intolerable housing” – should be given priority access to housing.
Tens of thousands of South Africans are living in emergency housing areas known as “temporary relocation areas”. These were established by municipalities as emergency housing for displaced people. But they have proved not to be temporary at all. In fact, some relocation areas have grown in size. This has left both the people who were originally moved into them on a temporary basis, as well as newcomers, in a situation of limbo.
A similar situation is also found in Johannesburg, where 118 households were evicted from the Marie Louise informal settlement in 2001 and placed in temporary relocation areas. Although the move was only supposed to be for 18 months, this community is still without adequate homes seven years later. This, despite the courts ordering the City of Johannesburg to provide them adequate basic housing.
Since the landmark Grootboom case, the Housing Development Agency has provided National Policy Guidelines for emergency housing programmes. The South African Human Rights Commission is constitutionally mandated to take steps to secure appropriate redress where human rights have been violated – such as is happening in Blikkiesdorp. It confirmed in a report in 2015 it was aware that people relocated to temporary areas end up living there forever. What needs to happen?
The first is relocate to a temporary area, then maintain the place adequately and, lastly, relocate the affected people to permanent housing. Importantly, the community must be involved in setting the time-frames for the allocation of permanent housing.
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