Chris Van Gass
21 February 2008
Cape Town — Backyard tenants and shack dwellers evicted from partially completed houses in Delft, part of the government's flagship N2 Gateway housing project, have vowed to continue their legal battle.
They are now set to challenge the allocation process for housing being applied by the Cape Town city council and the Western Cape provincial government.
More than 1000 residents forcibly removed from the houses in Delft Symphony by armed police on Tuesday following a Cape High Court order, were yesterday gathering their possessions and piling them up on open ground on the opposite side of the main road running past the development.
All the previously occupied houses were empty and were being watched over by private security personnel, while a large number of police vehicles patrolled the streets in the area.
On Tuesday the standoff between the residents and police erupted in violence when police fired rubber bullets at angry people trying to wrest away some of their possessions from trucks carrying them to a depot of the sheriff in Blackheath.
Arrests were made and seven people were injured.
Yesterday calm returned to the area and people milled about on the verge of the road opposite the housing complex, erecting makeshift shelters with what was left of their possessions to protect them from the searing heat.
Ashraf Cassiem, head of the anti-eviction campaign, said the people had slept "under the stars" and added that relief organisations had offered assistance of food and water to those left homeless.
He said while no specific incidents had been reported, private security personnel were still provoking and taunting those who had occupied the homes.
He said his organisation would pursue all legal avenues, in spite of having abandoned a last-minute urgent court action to prevent the evictions.
William Booth, the attorney who has acted for those who had occupied the houses, said the situation was "sad" and even if the matter was taken to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, any victory would be "hollow" as the evictions had already taken place.
He said although he did not have any specific brief, the most practical thing was to take the allocation process, which Judge Deon van Zyl had termed "flawed" in his judgment awarding the eviction order, on review to the high court.
Booth said he had called for mediation between the residents, the city and province over the issue and urged that alternative accommodation be provided to those evicted, as well as a reassessment of the allocation process.
He said the situation had been "an event waiting to happen" as most people, some having been on the housing list for as long as 20 years, did not know their position on the housing queue.
He said communication from the authorities with those on the waiting list had been non- existent.
"No one knows what's going on," said Booth.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
