26-year wait for RDP houses nears the end for some Vosloorus residents

Some Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing applicants are set to begin receiving their
new homes – 26 years after they first applied.

Questions around why applicants were only now receiving housing went unanswered.

MMC for human settlements in the City of Ekurhuleni Mabekenyane Thamahane announced on Friday a Vosloorus “mega housing project” in Extension 9, was about 95% finished.

Thamahane said, once completed, the project will have 584 RDP units and 70 “social housing” units for residents of Vosloorus, Katlehong and Thokoza, known as Kathorus.

The housing units will consist of eight blocks. Each block will be a four-storey block of flats and will have two bedrooms in each unit.

The primary goal of RDP housing – launched in 1994 – is to replace shacks usually found in townships and provide low-income people and families with a certain amount of dignity and quality of life.

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It is understood about three million units countrywide have been completed between 1994 and 2015.

“This is a very huge project for the people of Vosloorus and other areas,” Thamahane said.

“We have inspected the great workmanship and we are very delighted that the project will prioritise the disabled beneficiaries as well as the 1996 RDP applicants.”

Thamahane said the other phases were expected to be completed by June. RDP houses are owned, not rented, by the beneficiaries who qualify.

In addition, South Africans with disabilities are intended to receive preference when it comes to distribution of
funded housing and the houses are essentially built to be easily accessible.

– news@citizen.co.za