Humansdorp families stuck in emergency housing since 2011
“The municipality promised to relocate us to another site but nothing has happened so far”
Some Humansdorp residents say they have been living since 2011 in what was meant to be temporary, emergency housing.
After heavy rains caused floods in Old Golf Course, KwaNomzamo, in 2011, residents were moved to metal houses on a piece of open land. Some of the residents returned to their homes, but the backyarders were left behind and remain to this day in what is now called Silvertown.
It is home to about 150 people. There are 49 structures. One burnt down recently. There is no formal electricity. The metal shacks are cold. There are a few mobile toilets, but they are old and broken. The municipality cleans them only once a week. Water is supplied by a few taps.
Resident Mjongeli Patuleni says, “It seems as if we were just dumped here.” He says he can’t remember seeing any municipal official ever visit the settlement. “No one has ever come to check on our welfare … The municipality promised to relocate us to another site but nothing has happened so far,” says Patuleni.
Mjongeli lives with his wife and two children. The family depends on child grants.
Another resident, Nozuko Lombo, said, “The homes are too close to each other. People are always fighting over petty issues. I can’t live like this.”
Malibongwe Dayimani, ANC chief whip in the Kouga Municipality council, said, “We have presented their plight in council meetings on several occasions to no avail. We even requested that they be provided with additional toilets, water taps and electricity. We also proposed the municipality buy land to resettle them because the land they are occupying is a playing field for the community.” [The problem started under an ANC-led Kouga municipality in 2011. The DA took control of the Kouga municipality in the 2016 local elections. - Editor.]
Dayimani said there was mounting tension between the residents and people who lived nearby; they see Silvertown as a source of crime. “People are also demanding their ground [sport field] back,” said Dayimani.
Newly-appointed Executive Mayor Horatio Hendricks (DA) said, “We are also concerned that there have been reports of illegal activities taking place in the settlement.”
“To our knowledge, all the people who occupied the temporary structures due to their houses being flooded went back to their dwellings after the heavy rains subsidised. Other people did come in and tried to make the structures their permanent place of residence.”
He said, “We are not able to provide permanent services like electricity or waterborne sewerage system as the place is a sports field.”
“The municipality is in a process of land identification and acquisition to cater for human settlement needs for people in KwaNomzamo,” said Hendricks.
He said the council on Wednesday “resolved that it would establish housing committees and one of the tasks for the committee of this particular ward would be to do verification of who stays in those structures and to assist the people by directing them to register [for housing].”
Next: All Hermanus land protesters released on bail
Previous: I love it here, says dump site resident
© 2018 GroundUp.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.