Flamingo Heights, in the heart of Lansdowne, is home to 400 people.
Tucked away in the heart of Lansdowne in Cape Town is the little settlement of Flamingo Heights, established in 2014. On the face of it, this is an informal settlement with a difference: there are wide paths between shacks, and each home has its own running water, sanitation, and electricity connection. But residents say life there is tough.
Some people have been living there, on land owned by the City of Cape Town, since 2005. In 2014, people living near the train station and under Lansdowne Bridge were moved there by what was then the City's "Vagrant Unit".
In 2014, the City "reblocked" the settlement, reconfiguring the shacks into clusters and creating space between them for vehicles.
Today about 400 people live there, say residents, in 100 homes. Most are unemployed.
Each house has a flush toilet and running water, but residents say drains are often blocked and there are rats.
"The City used to provide us with those pills to kill the rats, but they stopped about six years ago and now we have to kill them ourselves," said resident Jamie-Lee Sauls, an unemployed mother of three...
