Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

The media are invited to join the Anti-Eviction Campaign tomorrow (Friday 12 September 2008) at 11am in Newfields Village, next to Hanover Park, Cape Town, as we host new Housing MEC Whitey Jacobs.

Jacobs has responded to our request to him that he come and inspect our houses.

We have been once again thrust into crisis by the government who, after agreeing to repair our poorly built flats, then decided to install plastic window latches.

Criminals are now having a field day in Newfields Village breaking off these latches and stealing our few prized possessions.

Below please find background information on our housing situation.

We note that the city of Cape Town announced two weeks ago that it is selling all its shares in the Cape Town Community Housing Company.

Gary Hartzenberg, Newfields Village Anti-Eviction Campaign Co-ordinator says: “The city is hellbent on running away from its responsibility to the people by privatising this housing company and this will be remembered at election time next year”.

For more info call Gary Hartzenberg on 072 3925859

BACKGROUND:

2 400 low cost houses were built by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC) between 1994 and 2000.

Almost immediately after residents moved in, the rent they had been told they would pay (R300 per month) was hiked to about R1500 per month.

Simultaneously, the houses began literally falling apart - damp walls, inadequate foundations and poor plumbing and cracks in the walls started appearing.

The city, which owns the CTCHC, refused to do anything until the community embarked on a rent boycott.

The CTCHC houses are situated in Newfields Village, Manenberg, Philippi, Mitchells Plain and Gugulethu.

Finally after a five year struggle by the community, the National Home Builders’ Registration Council appointed an independent consultant to audit the houses.

The audit found houses with severe cracks, poor brick-laying, loose roof tiles, soil erosion, gaps between walls and door frames and rusting window frames.

The city has launched legal action against the contractors, who they say took short cuts, to determine why the 10 low-cost housing projects were so shoddily built.

The bill for the repairs so far has run to R90 million.

Despite this, new contractors doing the repairs are again taking shortcuts to maximise their profits and are installing pointless things like plastic window latches, instead of normal metal window frames and window latches.

The repairs have cost R38 000 per house so far.

What is tragic is that most members of the community spent their tiny life savings on trying to repair their homes once the defects started to appear.

The city is now decided to dump its responsibilities by privatising the CTCHC.