Published on Monday, March 8, 2010 by Agence France Presse (accessed at Commondreams.org)

A UN human rights expert blamed football’s World Cup and the Olympic Games for forcing thousands out of their homes, as host cities sought “beautification” often at the expense of poor residents.Raquel Rolnik, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, said the International

Anti-poverty protestors march their version of the Olympic Torch through the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia February 7, 2010. (REUTERS/Andy Clark)

Olympic Committee (IOC) had recently taken steps to try to protect housing during the bidding process for the 2016 Games.

In contrast, world football’s governing body FIFA appeared to have done little to address housing concerns and had shunned UN queries since 2005, she added.

“I urge FIFA to open up, to be more transparent,” Rolnik told journalists.

The UN expert acknowledged that the Olympics had brought redevelopment and created subsidised housing in some instances, notably in Athens and Moscow.

But sporting mega events often started off with evictions and local authorities rarely allowed the poor to return, Rolnik said in a report.

“Very rarely does the majority of the new housing stock go to those who need it the most,” she told journalists.

The UN expert warned in a report that the economic benefits of staging such events are not spread evenly, as cities gave priority to “beautification over the needs of local residents”.

She highlighted the removal of 20,000 people from the Joe Slovo settlement in Cape Town to make way for rental housing for this year’s World Cup in South Africa, saying they were moved to “impoverished areas”.

“All the commitments for affordable housing were left behind and were not prioritised,” as 2010 World Cup stadium projects fell behind schedule, said Rolnik.

With the Vancouver Olympics, local authorities squeezed housing plans as they ran into financing problems, she added.

In Britain, 400 people were forced out of the Clays Lane estate, which was demolished to make way for the 2012 Olympic Park in east London.

The report noted that several thousand athlete lodgings in London are subsequently meant to be turned into affordable housing.

Rolnik also cited evictions in Barcelona prior to the 2002 Olympic Games, in Beijing before the 2008 Games, and of 35,000 families in New Delhi before this year’s Commonwealth Games in October, as well as pressure on the homeless in Atlanta (1996), Seoul (1988) and Vancouver.
© 2010 AFP

It’s Not Just A Game

The World Cup is arguably the most popular sporting event in the world.  Fans from all over the world rally around their home countries, all eyes on the month long football tournament (seeing as this is an international event, I am going to try to avoid referring to the sport as soccer.  My apologies if I fall back into it).  The World Cup is exciting—there is no doubt about it.  Stadiums get full of crazy, screaming football fans.  Those who cannot attend will stay up throughout the night to watch their national team live.  People take to the streets to celebrate big wins.  If you are like me, and thrive off of collective excitement, it is hard not to get swept away.  I don’t even particularly like football.  Sure, I can get down with a pick up game every once in a while and I will always come prepared with a soccer ball when working with kids (especially if we don’t speak the same language. This has proved to be a lifesaver time and time again).  But please don’t ask me to name a football player who is not Beckham or Ronaldinho.  So why choose the World Cup as the focus for this article if I don’t know a damn thing about soccer?   Because, as per usual with international sporting events (see:  just about every Olympics ever) there is another story that needs to be told.  A story about the people whose country is being invaded by contractors and rich tourists.  A story about the political and social upheaval that often accompanies such events.  In this case, a new story about South Africa. 

South Africa’s popular story is a remarkable one.  It includes the gravest of racial relations, a charismatic leader, and a peaceful revolution. South Africa is home to the highest GDP in Africa, a black head of state, a world rugby championship, and now the coveted World Cup.   The country is easily celebrated, and now the world has the chance to do so.  The United States and our international friends will be able to gaze at South Africa  (from afar of course, because god forbid we take the risk of actually visiting the country) through the eyes of a proud parent.
But I don’t want to talk about South Africa’s past or its remarkable transition into the world economy.  I want to talk about South Africa today.  I want to tell a different story.  A story that takes a football tournament and adds to it some of the gravest injustices: forced evictions, child slavery, and a separation between rich and poor that most do not understand.
Let us start with the forced removal of citizens (those who are familiar with South African history will recall the forced removals of the Apartheid regime).  While studying in South Africa in the spring of 2008, I had the opportunity to study with the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, a grassroots movement dedicated to housing rights for all South Africans.   As an umbrella organization for over 40 communities, the AEC takes on local government officials to fight for basic human rights: housing, water, and sanitation. Throughout South Africa, informal settlements were developed as a way for the Apartheid regime to house migrant workers close to the cities. They still exist and are currently in terrible condition (as in many countries throughout the world). As you drive west from Cape Town International Airport on the N2, you will quickly encounter the Joe Slovo Informal Settlement. Located in Langa, the oldest black township in the Western Cape, Joe Slovo is the home to approximately 20,000 residents.  There is no indoor plumbing, water is retrieved from taps, and bathrooms function by using the “bucket system.”
About 5 years ago, a housing contractor (Thubelisha Homes) unveiled plans to clear the settlement to make room for subsidized rental and full ownership units. It was promised to Joe Slovo residents that 70 percent of the new units would be made available to current residents and 30 percent would be filled by backyard-dwellers in surrounding townships. It probably goes without saying that this promise was never realized. The houses that were created are too few in number and unaffordable for the residents of Joe Slovo, those active citizens who were completely left out of this decision. The community mobilized against this injustice in 2005, partnering with the AEC and undergoing a direct action campaign against the state.
I am not going to get into the details of the campaign because that would require another paper in itself (one I have already written, if you are interested) but instead, I will jump over four years to June 2009 when the Constitutional Court of South Africa handed down its final ruling in the Joe Slovo case. It was decided that the residents would be forced to relocate to Delft, a township about 40 minutes outside of Cape Town (compared to the 15 minutes between Langa and the city) where public transportation is scarce and jobs are few. Described as the largest “judicially sanctioned eviction in post-Apartheid South Africa,” this ruling will not only effect the 20,000 residents of Joe Slovo but the urban poor all around South Africa.
Many argue that this project is nothing more than a beautification project, focused on clearing the N2 before the World Cup.  In fact, even the official report on the project published by the National Department of Housing states that the project has been prioritized in light of its high visibility on the gateway corridor linking the Cape Town International Airport to the main city. Simply put, the country needed to get rid of its urban poor before wealthy tourists started to flock to the state. This is just one example of the kind of removals that are occurring in multiple places throughout the country.
The major difference between this forced removal and the ones that Verwoerd and his racist cronies historically enforced is that the removal is now being enforced by a black government rather than a white one.  Citizens in South Africa are no longer systematically discriminated by the color of their skin, but instead by their wealth. It is hard to empirically measure income inequality, but it is not impossible. The GINI index is a scale that measures just that on a 0-100 scale. I can’t explain the math behind it, but the more unequal a country’s income distribution is, the higher its GINI index. As of 2005 (the most recent data to date), South Africa has a GINI index of 65. For a country that is routinely praised for its successful entrance into the world economy, consequently a lot of people are being left behind. In the end, the South African government will have contributed 17.4 billion rand (2.3 billion USD) to World Cup infrastructure. Some of that will come back during the tournament in the form of revenues from wealthy tourists, and there will, for another 6 months, continue to be an increase in short term jobs. But had a fraction of that money been spent on rebuilding communities like Joe Slovo, people could have kept their homes and their livelihoods.
A few weeks ago, TIME magazine published an article about the lucrative sex trade in South Africa. The article was terrifying. I recommend you all read it. In short, the human trafficking industry is growing, and its main benefactors are awaiting the World Cup with open arms. “I’m really looking forward to doing more business during the World Cup,” said a trafficker. Another, who admits to luring young girls from Johannesburg, said about the upcoming tournament, “Yeah, this is good! Us people are going to make a lot of money then if you know what you’re doing.” There is little being done about this in South Africa, and here at home. Slavery is illegal in South Africa but there is no specific law about human trafficking in all forms. In fact, convictions for sex trafficking bring little or no jail time and there are rumors of officials colluding with sex traffickers. I can’t do this article justice so I will leave you with some numbers. It is estimated that in South Africa (just to reiterate, the richest country in Africa) 38,000 children are forced into the sex trade annually. And Obama, who has pledged to make ending modern day slavery a top priority in his foreign policy (surprised? Yeah, me too), spends more money on fighting drug trafficking in a day than he does on fighting human trafficking in a year.
South Africa is a beautiful country, and I will always have a deep love for it. I am not critical of South Africa in the hopes that it fails, but insofar that it reaches its true potential as a nation. A nation that takes care of its own, of the people surrounding it (this article did not go into immigrant relations, but as you know, they are not pretty either), and its resources. I hope the World Cup goes smoothly and that South Africa loses its historical stigma of rape and murder. But I also hope that the masses there and throughout the world demand people listen to today’s story.

WESTERN Cape Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela has done away with former housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s N2 Gateway housing plans for Langa, Cape Town.

Sisulu, now defence minister, had wanted to remove thousands of people from the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa to make way for 1500 houses, many being houses out of the financial reach of the area’s mostly unemployed residents.

Madikizela made the announcement last night to about 1000 people packed into the Joe Slovo’s informal settlement’s wood and tin “community hall”.

He is set to announce his new plan for the area at a press conference to be held at provincial government offices this morning.

Madikizela told Sowetan that he would build 2800 houses, enough to accommodate all 8000 people living in the settlement.

He said “no one will go to Delft” (a temporary relocation area about 30km away).

The MEC also promised to do away with the “70-30 formula” where 30percent of the houses would have been allocated to backyard dwellers from other communities.

But Madikizela also warned the crowd “not to bring their relatives”.

The only people who would have to move were people who earned too much to qualify for a government-subsidised house, or those who had previously received a government subsidy, he said.

Joe Slovo task team leader Mzwanele Zulu, who led the residents’ campaign not to be forcibly removed to Delft, praised the announcement.

“Thus far we are on the same page if government is playing with open cards, unless they are going to disappoint us.”

But others in the crowd were sceptical, saying it was not clear who qualified for houses and who didn’t.

MONTHS after being completed, gap houses which form part of the N2 Gateway in Langa remain unsold as the bank financing the project admits affordability is a factor.
First National Bank spokesperson Busi Mngomezulu said some of the units priced at just under R600 000 had been hard to sell.

All 43 units at the show village are empty although Mngomezulu said 33 had been sold to approved buyers.

The bank had initially planned to build 300 units at the N2 Gateway even as critics claimed houses there would never be affordable to families who had previously lived at the Joe Slovo informal settlement, despite claims to the contrary from Thubelisha Homes and previous housing officials.

Further development at the site has been delayed by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale’s halting of all planned evictions of remaining shack dwellers in the area.

The first residents are expected to move into the area in January.

Mngomezulu said the delay was due to the bank’s awaiting the opening of the sectional title register.

Most of the units sold had been priced below R350 000, the cheapest at R’ 000.

To buy the remaining units, prospective owners have to earn between R11 700 and R20 000 a month as either part of a single or joint income, be creditworthy and have enough money left at the end of the month for living expenses.

One prominent critic of the housing project and the government’s handling of the Joe Slovo evictions and subsequent plans for the site, Emeritus Professor Martin Legassick, said people living there had been opposed to the development of gap houses.

“They should be knocked down and in their stead BNG (breaking new ground) houses would have to be built. They were built illegally while court action was under way to determine the legality of the N2 Gateway development.”

Admitting demolition would be extreme, Legassick said empty gap houses could be converted into medium-density units.

Meanwhile the chairman of the Joe Slovo Task Team, Sifiso Mapasa, said not a single family from the informal settlement, moved to make way for the N2 Gateway, had been accommodated at newly completed BNG houses.

“It was supposed to be a 70/30 split (the lesser coming from Joe Slovo) but the Housing Development Agency is repeating bad practices from the first phase of the N2 Gateway,” said Mapasa.

quinton.mtyala@inl.co.za

N2 gateway residents are seeking for the intervention of the city on crime and fraud they claim is happening in the block of flats.

Residents say the flats are not safe, thought there are security guards.
When residents approached the security company they said the Housing Development Agency is only paying them for access control and not to keep the Flats safe.

Recently a resident was hijacked at gunpoint in his own parking area.

Over the weekend 19 year old boy was stabbed to death outside his own home while the security guards slept on.

Western Cape Housing Minister Bonginkosi Madikizela was informed about the situation and said there is not much the city can do.

The Minister says his department is tied up as far as the N2 Gateway Pilot Project is concerned.

We are in a crisis here. The HDA replaced Thubelisha, but still, nothing has changed.

As far as crime is concerned there remains many problems. This includes fraudulent activities of staff members who used to work for Thubelisha Homes but are now reporting to the Housing Development Agency (HDA).

One of the problems is that the lights in the corridors outside of our units are being stolen. No response to this has came from the HDA.

Also, on the 9^th of October, a resident named Thabo was hijacked at gunpoint at 23h55 in the evening in his own parking area. The hijackers even stole his closes leaving him naked. What surprised us as residents is that Thabo stays very close to the entrance gate in full view of the Flats’ security guards. But guards claim not to have seen the incident. Thabo was not helped by the security guards with the company saying that the HDA is only paying them for access control and not to keep the Flats safe.

As the committee of the N2 Gateway Flats, we approached the senior security guard, Mr. Nobhatyi (073 878 6461) but only to find out that he had already tried to contact the N2 Gateway residents committee. Mr Nobhatyi told us that Bongani Bhele, the HDA caretaker of the N2 Gateway flats, prevented him from meeting with the residents. We also have evidence that Bongani is involved in a number of fraudulent activities here and therefore is trying to prevent residents and the security guards from working together.

We know that the underpaid security guards are not at fault. It is the corrupt people from the HDA who are preventing the security from being accountable to the community.

We have also approached the Langa Police seeking for their intervention. But as you know, they are always short of staff. We could not get much help…or should I say we could not get any help at all.

We approached the HDA directly because of various crime, fraud and mismanagement related issues.

We complained to the HDA about Bongani selling N2 Flats. We complained about people from outside the community being allowed in to kick the doors in and occupy many of the vacant flats. When confronted, these people told us that Bongani Bhele and someone named Eric asked them to pay a security deposit upfront. They claimed that Bongani and Eric would then disappear with the money leaving them without a flat.

The committee has helped one particular lady to write up an affidavit regarding this issue at the local police station. We have copies of her statement to show to anyone who is interested.

The HDA responded to our complaints by saying that there was nothing they could do because they ‘did not have a mandate’ to intervene. But it is their own people who are causing these problems!

We then approached the Housing MEC who came to meet with us on the 25^th of October. Mr. Figlan, a member of Parliament, accompanied him. But the meeting was not fruitful. He told us that “there is not much we can do. We are tied up as far as the N2 Gateway Pilot Project is concerned”.

Then on the 31^st of October in the early morning, a boy aged 19 was stabbed to death outside his own home while the security guards slept on.

Why must residents die? Who is next?

Why doesn’t the government come talk to us so that we can come up with a solution to the problems that they have caused?

Why does the government always say their hands are tied when they are the ones who created the problems in the first place?

The residents of the N2 Gateway Flats are very angry because the government and the HDA have tried to avoid each and every problem with their housing project.

First it was the contractors cutting corners and issuing us with keys that opened everyone else’s flats.

Then it was other problems of substandard housing and fraud. The auditor general found these problems. SCOPA found these problems. Even the Geneva based COHRE found these problems.

Now people are being attacked and even killed because the government refuses to work with us and solve the problems that they caused.  The HDA is causing more problems and corruption. Its the same as Thubelisha Homes which preceded it. We didn’t need Thubelisha and we don’t need it the HDA.

Here is our call for government to finally intervene – meaningfully:

We, as the residents of the N2 Gateway Flats can manage our own community. We can create our own form of cooperative governance for our own community. And we can do it without corruption and mismanagement.

Contact the N2 Gateway Flats Committee for more information:

A HUMAN rights NGO affiliated to the UN has released a scathing report on the N2 Gateway project, calling it badly planned and managed.

The Swiss-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (Cohre) said research and available information on the N2 Gateway project pointed to several flaws and acts of non-compliance in its planning and implementation.

The failure of housing authorities to adequately consult people or explore all feasible alternatives was likely to result in human rights violations for Joe Slovo residents, Cohre’s report said.
Ashraf Cassiem, the chairman of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, said the report echoed their calls for greater public participation in the N2 Gateway project.

They welcomed the report, he said, because it provided structured findings from an international body that documented the plight of ordinary people who had been fighting eviction orders.

The report also found that the N2 Gateway project had progressed without due consideration of the rights of affected people to participate in developments that affect their lives and livelihoods.

It found evidence that the project had been mismanaged and that steps to reach the next phase of the project had been pushed through without adequate preparation.

Cohre said that even though the national and provincial housing departments had been pushing for the relocation of Joe Slovo residents, they were not prepared and did not have the land nor the Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) required to house 20 000 people.

Cohre recommended that the minister of housing, the MEC for local government and housing, the Housing Development Agency replacing Thubelisha Homes and the City of Cape Town Council should immediately halt all plans to evict Joe Slovo residents and relocate them to Delft.

It also urged immediate discussions with affected residents in the Delft area, including residents of Tsu-nami TRA and Symphony Way, with a view to find a permanent solution to their housing concerns.

According to the report, mechanisms should be provided for complaints and grievance redress regarding all those relocated from Joe Slovo informal settlement.

It also suggested that a clear timeline and a plan for the provision of permanent housing to all affected people should be provided, ensuring that the plan took into account the needs of local people who were waiting in line for permanent housing as well as those who had been relocated.

Attempts to contact Itumeleng Kotsoane of the Department of Human Settlements last night and this morning were unsuccessful.

The report follows hot on the heels of a new order issued by the Constitutional Court last month, suspending its earlier order and upholding the eviction of 10 000 residents of the Joe Slovo settlement in Langa.

In March last year, Cape Judge President John Hlophe ruled that the Joe Slovo shack dwellers must be evicted to make way for the N2 Gateway Project.

Joe Slovo community leaders took the matter on appeal to the Constitutional Court.

In June, the court upheld Judge Hlophe’s ruling, but ordered that the Joe Slovo residents be removed in phases and placed 20km away in Delft.

But on August 24 the Con-stitutional Court quietly issued a new order suspending the evictions until further notice.

It is in fact scandalous that Duarte clearly had no idea of the condition of many of the flats. Surely it did not escape his notice that Phase 1 residents marched in Cape Town as recently as June 30, complaining not only of exorbitant rentals but of unrepaired defects in the flats?

Duarte adds “We did an assessment (last year). Thubelisha is not aware of anything that has happened subsequently.” He implies the defects observed when Scopa visited the site last week were new. But much (though not all) of them were due to trapped moisture, due to the failure to install ventilation ducts, which flat residents have been complaining about since their arrival in 2006-7.

In addition Duarte plays the old pass-the-buck game, stating that “Thubelisha took over the N2 Gateway when it was 90 percent built, so any structural defects were the city council’s responsibility”. He forgets to point out that the 90 percent was built when the ANC controlled the City of Cape Town, and that when the new DA city council began to investigate the problems of cost overruns etc in Phase 1 after March 2006, they were promptly booted off the N2 Gateway project by then-housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu. In any case, it was surely the responsibility of Thubelisha to examine the condition of the property they were taking over at the time. Instead they at first refused to accept that there were any defects at all.

The residents of Phase 1 deserve redress, in the form of adequate repairs, affordable rents, and what they call a “rent to buy” rather than rent for life option. It is also vital that management of the flats is taken out of the hands of the National Housing Agency (successor to Thubelisha) and put in the hands of local management, preferably self-management by the tenants themselves.

Thubelisha, in any case, was supposed to have been dissolved on July 31 and it is unclear why John Duarte is still acting CEO of it.

For comment on how the N2 Gateway has effected the lives of poor people in Cape Town, contact:

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COHRE RELEASES N2 GATEWAY PROJECT REPORT
FRIDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2009

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) today released a report on housing rights violations in the context of the N2 Gateway development project in South Africa. The report is based on research conducted by COHRE during a fact finding mission to South Africa in 2008 and its amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) submission to the South African Constitutional Court in the recently decided “Joe Slovo” case (Residents of Joe Slovo Community, Western Cape v Thubelisha Homes & Others, CCT 22/08[2009] ZACC 16). The report –N2 Gateway Project: Housing Rights Violations as ‘Development’ in South Africa — is available at http://www.cohre.org

*** CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CORHE REPORT ***