“We need housing,”says Charlie Jacobs, a pensioner living with his wife and three children in a three-roomed house in Ghost Town. “I have put a shack next to my house so that I can have one more room.”
“We need housing,”says Charlie Jacobs, a pensioner living with his wife and three children in a three-roomed house in Ghost Town. “I have put a shack next to my house so that I can have one more room.”
The residents who live in Ghost Town believe they are being neglected as there are housing developments taking place in black townships, but not in their area. According to another Ghost Town resident Sidney Sphere, residents were told by Ward Xolani Simakuhle that there is no land available in the area to build houses. “But in the black area they are building them houses where they live, in their own yards,” he says.
A short distance from Ghost Town, in Hoogenoeg, residents live in two-roomed RDP houses, and they are also not happy. Geoffrey Langley, complains that the houses are too small and says that when it rains the roof leaks. “We have no privacy,” he adds. “The family has to partition the rooms on their own so that they can have a separate bedroom, kitchen and living room. We cannot even accommodate visitors!” Langley says that he is unable to build onto his house because he is doesn’t have a job. If he can get someone to donate bricks, then he says he will be able to do so.
Caroline Helme, also from Hoogenoeg, lives with her two daughters and four grandchildren. The house is too small for her large family, so she has had to add on an additional room and a kitchen made from corrugated iron. “In Extension 9, the houses that they have built are bigger. It is only in our area where houses are small,” she says.
Helme also mentioned that the houses in Hoogenoeg are L-shaped, whereas those in the black township are square.
Many of the residents from both Ghost Town and Hoogenoeg complained about the accountability of their ward councillors. Some said that they were not even aware who their councillors are. “ Simakuhle told us that there is no land to build houses,” says Vuyiswa Heber, a Ghost Town resident. “We told him there is land where they can build houses. He said he would convene another meeting to discuss the issue but never came back to us.”
Simakuhle denies ever telling residents that there was no land to build houses. "There is land, but of course there are processes that should be followed before a housing development can take place," he says. He says the government does not want to build houses where there are no facilities like water and toilets.
"Residents do not come to meetings, that is why they have incorrect information," he added, showing a meeting register of people who had attended a meeting he had called in Hoogenoeg. He also says the houses in Hoogenoeg that residents are complaining about were built long ago when funds were limited. But now, he says, the houses are much better.
Ward 11 councillor, Lena May, admits that people have been complaining about housing for years already and nothing is happening. "Service delivery is just lip service," she says. "Chances are that houses may not be built this year." She feels that she is being marginalised because she is a Democratic Alliance councillor, and that she is not being consulted about what happens in her ward. "Last week I called a meeting, and two hours later the ANC instructed me to stop the meeting," she says.
“We want them to build us houses because we do not have money to buy them,” says Danny May, who depends on a disability grant to support two children. However, Heber believes that people in her area do not get houses because they do not insist on their rights. According to Heber, those who get houses is because they stand up for their rights.
