‘I’m afraid I will give birth on the streets’ – evicted woman

The housing crisis in Alexandra continues to deepen as hundreds of illegal occupants of the Marlboro container units stood by and watched as their belongings were being thrown out.

A heavy police presence escorted residents who had been squatting in the area and had self-allocated the units among the community.

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Eight months pregnant

One of the evicted dwellers, Happy Mnisi, who is eight months pregnant and had occupied the vacant units for over a year, said she was shocked that officials had no sympathy for her situation.

“I am not okay. I am afraid that I will give birth on the streets because I have nowhere else to go,” she said.

“They evicted us without providing alternative accommodation. Every time they evict us, we end up living on the streets.

“I stayed outside for months after the last eviction, went back for just one month and now I’m being evicted again.”

Mnisi added her furniture was outside, along with clothes and essentials for her new baby.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do should I give birth right now,” she said.

“Now, they threaten that they are going to remove us from the streets, too. I don’t have any family around or money to transport my furniture.”

This is the third time the residents have been evicted, with this most recent eviction being the first since the fatal shooting of EFF ward councillor Moshe Mphahlele during a clash between police and the residents outside the units last month.

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Project plagued by illegal community invasions

The block of four-storey container flats were originally built as Covid shelters to enable social distancing in the high-density neighbourhood.

However, they were never used for that purpose.

The City of Joburg intended to repurpose the units and connect essential services such as electricity and water, but the project has been plagued by illegal community invasions.

According to the community, they had run out of patience as the containers had been empty.

Another community member Fistos Khumalo, voiced his frustration, slamming what he termed was an “uncaring government”.

“We’re forced back onto the streets and they don’t care because they won’t even give us alternative accommodation,” he said.

“How do they bring in police to remove people who are just seeking accommodation?

“Who are the people who are supposed to occupy these units if they are vacant?”

According to some residents, although they wanted to live in the containers, they said the city can take the containers back and leave the land vacant so that community members could build their own structures.

“If they don’t want to give us a place to stay, they’ll keep calling the police to remove us. But for as long as we are here, no-one will occupy them. They’ll just get old or be removed,” Khumalo said.

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