Cape Town - “The Western Cape provincial Department of Human Settlements has indicated that within the City of Cape Town and Matzikama municipalities, there are 214 houses that were illegally occupied.”
This was Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi’s response in Parliament to an ANC MP question about illegally occupied RDP houses.
She said the three entities had so far removed 50 illegal occupants. Kubayi said officials had told her they would initiate eviction processes at the houses still occupied illegally.
Human Settlements Mayco member Malusi Booi said 1 113 rental units had been illegally taken over by families in the city. Mfuleni had the highest hijacked rentals at 295, followed by Langa at 158.
Ndifuna Ukwazi attorney Jonty Cogger said land occupation was not right, but the government was equally wrong to criminalise desperate people who wanted housing.
He said the increase in land occupations was a consequence of the government’s failure to deliver housing at scale, and redress the “toxic legacy of apartheid spatial planning”.
“City targets for annual housing delivery have drastically shrunk from an average of 17619 homes and serviced sites between 2013 and 2020, down to 8 000 serviced stands over five years,” Cogger said.
“Some people have been on the waiting list for as long as 20 years. So telling people to wait patiently for their turn is blatant lying, as the demand is constantly growing and delivery dramatically shrinking,” he said.
Meanwhile, a City Public Housing: Tenancy Management Branch report, dated June 1, shows in addition to the high number of hijacked houses, the City’s housing system is confronted by a double whammy – 35 known gangsters who have occupied its rental stock illegally, and housing queue jumpers, some of whom are not even on the database.
The gangsters live in Manenberg (17), Athlone (2), Elsies River (2), Uitsig (7), Atlantis (1), Mitchells Plain (1), Silvertown (1) and Heideveld (4).
Eight alleged gangsters are tenants, while the rest of the alleged gangsters are illegal tenants. Some were sent notices, others were referred to the Housing Safety Unit.
DA councillor Angus McKenzie told the Cape Argus he had overseen the eviction of five gangsters in Bonteheuwel between 2015 and 2020, but the pandemic stymied evictions. He said he remained committed to booting out criminals.
The tenancy management branch report echoes Booi’s claim about the 1 113 reported cases, and states these cases are “at various stages of action”.
“The unlawful occupation of public rental units is one of the biggest challenges facing the City as landlord. This number grows daily and requires action, as without an agreement of lease revenue to the City is lost,” the report said.
The report also said those applying for the rental stock had found ways to jump the queue in a backlog that could make applicants wait for up to 25 years.
Furthermore, the City’s understaffed 26 housing offices, which have a staff complement of 168, lack the capacity to monitor “saleable and non-saleable” rental units and 40563 council rental units.
The report said: “Hence the reliance is mostly on residents coming forward to report cases of unlawful occupation. Most people in unlawful occupation are either not on the housing database or have recent application dates, which means they are effectively queue-jumping and taking opportunities away from applicants who followed the correct process by registering on the housing database and are patiently waiting their turn to be assisted.”
Provincial Human Settlements spokesperson Nathan Adriaanse said two projects were currently illegally occupied.
“One hundred and fourteen incomplete units were invaded and remain illegally occupied in Gugulethu, while 78 houses were illegally occupied and, to date, 60 are still illegally occupied in Vredendal,” he said.
Adriaanse said there were two court orders granted to evict the illegal occupants in Vredendal, where the municipality did not have sufficient funds (about R3 million) to cover eviction costs.
Matzikama has since submitted requests to the department to assist with funding.
Meanwhile, the City intends to initiate eviction proceedings against the illegal occupants in Gugulethu, Adriaanse said.