Shack fires are an unremitting scourge facing urban townships. In South Africa, between 2000 and 2010, over 230 000 people were made homeless by fires. Growing urban populations together with inadequate services, in particular electricity and water, means urban shack fires will continue to take their toll. There is an urgent need for effective solutions to address the major causes.
Fergus Turner
News | 5 August 2013
At every railway bridge from Observatory to Rondebosch there are homeless people who occupy the subways. They come from different backgrounds and have different reasons for why they do not have homes.
Pharie Sefali
News | 31 July 2013
Amelia Earnest met people who live on the streets of Cape Town. Some of them have been living outside since they were children. The City recently made it harder for them. Read the full story below the photographs.
Amelia Earnest
News | 30 July 2013
Amelia Earnest met people who live on the streets of Cape Town. Some of them have been living outside since they were children. The City recently made it harder for them. Read the full story below the photographs.
Amelia Earnest
News | 30 July 2013
Living conditions of Lonmin workers show how exploitation and neglect continue on South African platinum mines.
Raphael Chaskalson
Opinion | 17 July 2013
Some residents in Nyanga claim that the Department of Housing is not to blame for their housing problems.
Pharie Sefali
News | 10 July 2013
While Thembisa Maso, a KTC resident still waits for her house to be completed, Mbuyiselo Vena, her neighbour, is struggling day in and day out in a wheelchair after being on a housing waiting list for the past 20 years.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 29 May 2013
The Democratic Alliance markets itself as an efficient and un-corrupt alternative to the ANC. It never hesitates to point out serious service delivery failures by the ANC. So it is interesting to see its responses to the Social Justice Coalition's criticisms of the City of Cape Town's handling of a major toilet supply contract in Khayelitsha.
Nathan Geffen
News | 30 April 2013
“I have to tie his leg to the couch. If I don’t he wanders away and I have to run around the whole of RR section in search of him, giving people a description of him and asking if anyone has seen a boy resembling my son.”
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 24 April 2013
When Premier Helen Zille was bitten by a rat last week, her spokesperson was quoted saying, “I know the City Bowl rats are mutant freaks of nature but if they’re starting to take nibbles out of people, we’re in trouble." However, as this story of a Khayelitsha baby bitten by a rat shows, in some parts of the City, rats are no laughing matter and rats "taking nibbles out of people" are not that unusual.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 27 March 2013
Andiswa (not her real name) has been a resident of Khayelitsha Site C for 27 years. She turned her township home into a BnB business in 2006 offering tourists the exclusive and unique option of experiencing life in a shack. This all came to a screeching halt in April 2009 when her house was destroyed by BKS employees.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 6 March 2013
Temporary house structures are being built in Gugulethu to accommodate residents who are currently occupying Masonwabe hostels.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 20 February 2013
Yet another shack fire has devastated the BM section of Khayelitsha. On New Years morning fires raged through the community, leaving about 4,000 people homeless and killing at least four. The responses from authorities to what has now become a routine occurrence in the area have been mixed.
Ben Fogel
Opinion | 13 February 2013
On Thursday morning I went to see Libertas Flats in Klosser Street, Parow. This block is a human pig sty. It is filthy and stinks. There are leaking ceilings and walls that seem to have been painted a century ago. Many flats are without water and electricity.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 6 February 2013
Residents burned tyres at Boystown near Crossroads in Nyanga. They complained that houses were being built without knowledge of who is going to receive them.
Mihle Pike
News | 6 February 2013
Families are affected by township fires. We follow the lives of these individuals as they recount their tragic stories and how they have picked up the pieces and moved on with their lives.
Chume Ntuli and Buchule Putini
News | 30 January 2013