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subsidised housing, Pietermaritzburg
Kennedy Road settlement, Durban |
South Africa
The South African Constitution and other South African legislative and policy instruments are often promoted internationally as models for protecting and promoting housing rights. For instance, the National Housing Subsidy Scheme has been used to finance the construction of over 1.5 million houses across South Africa between 1994 and 2003. The South African Government has also facilitated the transfer of over 370,000 title deeds to tenants of council houses in former black townships, giving tenants ownership of their homes.
Despite such achievements, the waiting lists for housing subsidies are enormous - with 250,000 to 300,000 families on the City of Johannesburg's waiting list, as of 2005. Furthermore, low-cost housing settlements are generally located on the urban periphery, far from transport routes, access to schools and clinics and livelihood opportunities, often forcing people to choose between a home and an income.
Many low-income South Africans have preferred to risk insecure tenure and possible eviction by building shacks in informal settlements that may be closer to livelihood opportunities and may have low or no rental rates and minimal service charges. The Housing Department of Johannesburg estimated a total of 209,381 shacks in the municipal area in 2004.
Yet another risky alternative is for low-income South Africans to occupy abandoned buildings in the inner-city, contending with overcrowded conditions, poor sanitation, and the constant threat of eviction, in order to be close to livelihood opportunities.
Despite legal protections and ambitious housing policies, millions of South Africans live in conditions of insecure tenure, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly evicted without legal recourse over the past 10 years.
Similarly, the right to water enjoys Constitutional and statutory protection, yet far too many South Africans lack access to affordable, safe drinking water and sanitation. COHRE has begun using legal and policy strategies to enforce the right to water and sanitation in South Africa. Success there will not only help South Africans, but hopefully show the rest of the world that the right to water and sanitation can be enforced. For more information, see www.cohre.org/watersa |
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Durban
In South Africa as a whole there has been a disturbing shift in recent years from a pro-poor and rights-based discourse with regard to shack settlements to one that is more security based and sometimes anti-poor. The widely condemned KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act is a worrying consequence of this shift. In Durban the eThekwini Municipality is building a considerable number of houses and should be commended for this. Many of these houses, however, are of poor quality and many are built far out of the city in a manner that entrenches rather than ameliorates the structural injustice that it is the legacy of apartheid spatial segregation. Furthermore, the level of services provided to shack settlements is entirely inadequate to the point where it is often a clear threat to basic safety. Problems in this regard are particularly acute with regard to the provision of sanitation and electricity with the absence of the latter being directly linked to shack fires. It is also clear that unlawful evictions are routine in Durban and that relocations are often, although certainly not always, forced removals. Finally, there is credible evidence to suggest that there has been severe, violent and unlawful repression of shack dwellers’ organisations with Abahlali baseMjondolo being a particular target of state repression.
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| COHRE Fact-Finding Report: "Business As Usual?: Housing Rights and 'Slum Eradication' in Durban, South Africa" |
This COHRE fact-finding mission report into housing rights and ‘slum eradication’ in Durban was largely researched in 2007 although some follow up work was done in early 2008. It has been subject to a rigorous editorial process and an equally rigorous international review process. While recognizing the efforts of the eThekwini Municipality to build a considerable number of houses each year, the report concludes that the houses being built are often located so far out of town as to make them unviable for many people due to unaffordable transport costs to work, schools, and hospitals. The report also expresses serious concern about the size and quality of the houses that are being built and over the failure to provide adequate levels of basic services to shack dwellers while they wait for formal housing. In some instances levels of basic services in shack settlements are inadequate to the point of being life threatening according to COHRE’s research.
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| COHRE Media Release: Durban fact-finding mission report release |
COHRE Releases Report on Housing Rights in Durban
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South African Constitutional Court: Various Occupants v. Thubelisha Homes and others
The N2 Gateway Project near Cape Town, South Africa, is intended to create low-income housing. The project, however, falls short of international human rights standards by failing to consult meaningfully with the residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement who face eviction and temporary relocation to make way for the project. Furthermore, the temporary relocation will result in residents of the Joe Slovo settlement being cut off from existing economic opportunities and other social networks that make up the comprehensive understanding of the right to adequate housing under South African and international human rights law.
COHRE and its local partner, the Community Law Centre (UWC), have intervened as amici curie in a legal challenge to the implementation of the N2 Gateway Project. COHRE and the Community Law Centre provide the court with an analysis of international human rights law applicable to the case, arguing that as designed the project violates international human rights standards as well as Constitutional protections in South Africa.
See below to download the amici curiae brief from COHRE and the Community Law Centre to the Constitutional Court, as well as other documents.
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| Constitutional Court: Various Occupiers v. Thubelisha Homes and others |
Submission of COHRE and the Community Law Centre as Amici Curiae to the Constitutional Court
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| COHRE and CALS send letter of concern regarding N2 Gateway relocations |
On 26 September 2007, COHRE and CALS sent a joint letter of concern regarding the proposed relocation of the 6000 residents of the Joe Slovo settlement for construction of the N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town, South Africa. Joe Slovo residents oppose their relocation to Delft because it is far from income-generating opportunities, among other concerns.
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Johannesburg
The City of Johannesburg has carried out forced evictions in the inner city in the context of the Johannesburg Inner City Regeneration Strategy (ICRS), aimed at creating an ‘African World Class City’ and attracting investment. The strategy includes the clearance of an estimated 235 ‘bad buildings’, which are regarded as being at the centre of developmental ‘sinkholes’. The Johannesburg City Council has obtained urgent eviction orders under the pretence of being concerned for the health and safety of residents. However, evictions have been carried out in the middle of the night and without notice. While conditions in many of the buildings are appalling, the procedures used by the municipality are grossly unfair, including the use of Apartheid-era laws and regulations. In addition, people are not consulted or offered any viable alternatives. In the name of safety and health in the buildings, residents have been made homeless and left on the streets to fend for themselves. The strategy affects approximately 67 000 residents of ‘bad buildings’.
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| Any Room for the Poor? Forced Evictions in Johannesburg, South Africa (March 2005) |
This report is the product of a 3 month fact-finding mission by COHRE to investigate forced evictions in Johannesburg. The report evaluates housing provision and evictions practices in light of South Africa's obligations under international and national law, as well as the developmental challenges facing the City of Johannesburg.
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South African Constitutional Court: Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others
On 19 February 2008, South Africa's Constitutional Court (CC) overturned the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling in Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others, noting that the SCA “should not have granted the order of ejectment ... in the absence of meaningful engagement.” The Court further held that section 12(6) of the National Building Regulations and Standards Act is unconstitutional and ordered the City of Johannesburg to pay the costs of the applicants in the High Court, the SCA and the CC. The ruling is a landmark victory for the more than 67,000 low-income residents of Johannesburg facing eviction threats due to the City's Inner City Regeneration Strategy.
See below to download the Constitutional Court ruling and the amici curiae brief from COHRE and the Community Law Centre to the Constitutional Court, as well as the now overturned rulings from the SCA and the High Court.
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| Constitutional Court: Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others |
Constitutional Court ruling in Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others
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Submission of COHRE and the Community Law Centre as Amici Curiae tothe Constitutional Court
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The overturned Supreme Court of Appeal ruling of March 2007 in Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others
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The overturned High Court ruling of March 2006 in Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others
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KZN Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Bill
4 July 2007: The Legislature of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) recently passed the KZN Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Bill, 2006, a bill which inter alia makes it mandatory for land owners and municipalities to instigate eviction procedures wherever people are unlawfully occupying land or buildings. This has instantly reduced the tenure security of millions of South Africans and should urgently be reconsidered. COHRE regards this as a regressive and highly dangerous piece of legislation, and has expressed this concern in a letter to the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal. The Premier has not yet assented to and gazetted this bill, and therefore still has the obligation to refer it back to the legislature for reconsideration if s/he has any doubts about the constitutionality of the bill.
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| COHRE letter to the KwaZulu-Natal Premier |
COHRE letter to the KwaZulu-Natal Premier urging him to refer the KZN Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Bill to the KZN Legislature for reconsideration.
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Pietermaritzburg (Msunduzi Municipality)
In 2005, following reports of evictions from Willow Gardens Estates - part of the Msunduzi Municipality's social housing stock - COHRE and the Centre on Applied Legal Studies (CALS) were drawn to investigate possible housing rights violations. Our initial research found that rentals for State-funded and Council-owned housing are being increased at a rate of 15 percent per annum, "until 'break even' market rentals are reached", according to the Municipality's documents. These compound rental increases have been unsustainable for many residents and have led most residents to fall into arrears, some of whom have been evicted.
COHRE and CALS research finds that the Msunduzi Municipality has failed to progressively realise the right to access adequate housing for the more than 57,790 households of Pietermaritzburg that cannot afford market rentals, and instead has instituted a regressive, anti-poor policy that has caused homelessness and has led to burgeoning informal settlements.
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| Pushed to the Periphery |
COHRE and CALS 2007 report on the housing crisis faced by low-income residents of Pietermaritzburg
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