Last week, residents of Soweto’s Mzimhlophe Women’s Hostel were at the forefront of a crowd that occupied 66 new homes at the hostel site which have stood empty for over seven years.
Mosa Damane
News | 17 February 2015
The City of Cape Town’s Law Enforcement evicted land occupiers near Gugulethu on Saturday morning – demolishing six shacks before violent protests erupted. By Monday calm had returned to the community, but the frustrations of shack dwellers from KwaKiki and Sweethome Farm informal settlements continue unrelieved. As police remain on site, residents have vowed that their struggle for land will continue.
Daneel Knoetze
Feature | 16 February 2015
The first few months of Margaret Papier’s stay in Flamingo Crescent, a shanty town in Lansdowne, were so rough that she considered moving back to her former home underneath Lansdowne Bridge. Now, after three years of upgrading, she and her partner have a modest yet comfortable and electrified home, with access to clean drinking water and a flush toilet outside their front door.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 11 February 2015
A shack fire that tore through Langrug informal settlement in Franschhoek on Saturday has been blamed on a combination of negligence and unexpected load shedding.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 9 February 2015
Pheliswa Cekiso, 28, was two months pregnant when she was evicted from her shack in Lwandle. In December she gave birth to a healthy boy. But the Nomzamo community hall where she lives is no place to bring up a child, she says.
Zintle Swana
News | 5 February 2015
Minister for Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu is in the process of drafting amendments to eviction legislation, in line with the report of the commission of inquiry into the Lwandle evictions last year.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 4 February 2015
Zola Square in Site C, Khayelitsha, was the site of yet another shack fire yesterday.
Photos by Masixole Feni. Text by Kevin Elliott.
Brief | 28 January 2015
Last year, the eviction of hundreds of shack dwellers from Lwandle, Strand on the eve of a winter storm sparked a national outcry. Seven months later, construction of alternative accommodation has ceased, and yet dozens of evictees remain homeless - holed up in a temporary relief shelter at a nearby community hall. They have been all but forgotten.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 16 January 2015
A group of about 100 Mfuleni backyarders who raised eyebrows in the community after erecting and moving into a tent in an open space, more than five months ago, say they are not going anywhere until they are heard.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 16 January 2015