Members of the Alexandra Bonafides Civic Movement who were evicted after illegally occupying the Bothlabela Extension 2 flats have turned to the courts for redress.
Since the eviction three weeks ago, they have camped outside the flats in Eastbank hoping that meetings with the department of housing and other authorities would resolve the issue. This they said had failed and forced them to lodge a case of illegal eviction against the department in the Gauteng High Court.
The 232 unit flats constructed under the Financial Linked Individual Subsidy Programme/Scheme were built for Alexandrians in the income bracket of R3 500 to R15 000. Since completion early in the year, the flats have not been allocated prompting the illegal occupation after months of running battles between residents desperate for housing, and the Joburg Development Agency and police. The delay in allocating the flats to residents is said to be a result of the slow processing of applications.
The movement’s members said after ‘illegally’ occupying the flats for four months they had hoped the department would consider them for occupation. Only 11 applicants were said to have qualified to date from the apparently 5 000 who have applied. The movement’s chairperson Dumezweni Kulashe said most of their members were unemployed and could not afford repayments, but were prepared to pay for services as the occupants of RDP houses do.
“Our eviction and the department’s unwillingness to consider this option or get us alternative housing as per law, prompted us to approach the courts,” he said. Kulashe added that after the eviction the department had also promised them tents and food supplies, but this had subsequently been stopped as their case was deemed not disaster related.
Kulashe attributed the Alex housing problems to lack of transparency in the housing development programme which he said was compounded by the allocation of RDP houses in Extension 7, 9 and 10 to people who were not on the housing list. Evidence of this he said would be unravelled by an audit the department promised to conduct in February next year.
The agency has insisted that the flats were designed for occupants who were in a higher income bracket.
Kulashe said they will continue camping outside the flats pending the court hearing on a date still to be set.
