Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

A COMMUNITY living on the fringes of Cape Town is sick and tired of being used by politicians, and won’t vote in tomorrow’s elections.

The Symphony Way pavement dwellers, who set up house on the pavement of Delft Street and are refusing to budge until they get proper homes, have accused political parties of trying to bribe them with offers of help only during election time.

The residents, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan “No Houses, No Land, No Vote”, said Cope went as far as to offer to provide an advocate to help them in their court battle against their eviction.

There are no election posters here.

Anti-Eviction Campaign secretary Kareemah Linneveldt said they told parties not to put up posters because they would have no interest in elections until they had proper housing.

“For 13 months we have lived on the pavement and not a single politician visited us. Now everyone is offering us help,” she said.

The Symphony Way residents were back yard dwellers who illegally occupied newly built houses in Delft before moving to the pavement.

Of the Cope offer, Linneveldt said: “We were told that if we won the case, we should say Cope won it for us, and that we should wear their T-shirts and support them.”

News of their planned stayaway – and a similar action by residents of nearby Blikkiesdorp, many of whom were moved from Symphony Way – comes as expatriates in London have shown astonishing enthusiasm. Read the rest of this entry »