None of the governments housing plans to date have managed to undo apartheid spatial planning or reduce informal housing settlements. The latest programme looks like it offers more of the same instead of hope for structural change
housing
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#Shackville is your struggle too, black graduates
By Michelle October What a time to be alive, students revolting and the flames of rebellion licking at the doors of the colonisers. The Rhodes Must Fall movement’s reignited its efforts and burning historic artworks at the University of Cape Town. This activism could just as easily be airlifted and placed outside Parliament’s doors because […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Lindiwe Sisulu and the myth of ‘welfare queens’
Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is no stranger to the spotlight. Despite being one of the highest-ranking female leaders in the ANC, the spotlight tends to follow her for all the wrong reasons. And that’s why I’ve always watched her carefully. The daughter of a political dynasty and a surviving doyenne in the continuous internal struggle […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
An activist’s manifesto for 2014: Ten social justice issues to champion
The fanfare at the beginning of a new year is usually celebratory and full of hope. This celebration is a way for people to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. But last year, 2013, was a particularly tumultuous year in South Africa when we were besieged by problems. In reality, these problems have been […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Health
Waiting to inhale (Part 1)
By Gillian Schutte It’s a blistering hot afternoon when we arrive at the Barracks. This regimentally built cluster of council houses was erected in Wentworth in the 1970s and used to temporarily house part of the community that was forcibly removed from Cato Manor to Durban South in the 1974. Thirty-six years later the same […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Addressing the housing shortage in South Africa
Access for the poor to urban land and housing is one of the main challenges facing policy makers in South Africa. Estimates suggest that 26% of households in the six metropolitan areas in our country live in in-formal dwellings, often “illegally” and with limited access to services. Movement from the informal to the formal sector […]