The government needs to act urgently to address the issue of poverty lines

The recent attacks on foreign nationals in Diepsloot and Alexandra have once again highlighted the challenges posed by poverty in our country.

It has shown how people can resort to violence when faced with hunger or joblessness.

What’s worsening the situation is that, quite often, informal settlements, estates, and economic hubs are in close proximity.

Many times, residents of the estates have complained about the depreciating influence of the shacks near their properties, while shack dwellers have to watch the kind of the life they hope for.

While in Sandton, for instance, one takes in the sunset with a glass of sherry, but the residents of Alexandra or Diepsloot are choking on the smoke-filled air.

In these sharp contrasts, we have people, documented and undocumented, living side by side – basically at odds for whatever little available resources there are, the “piece jobs” in the areas of affluence.

It must also be a hard feat for those who call these places of affluence their workplaces, to see what life could be, only to have to go back to the everyday struggle that is informal living.

This being said, the make-up of our society is a tricky one. While opportunities may be in Sandton and Ballito, as the economics of those areas allow for the hiring of housekeepers, nannies, and gardeners, the townships and informal settlements also need to have job opportunities.

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Not that there should be an exclusion by means of using the economy, but rather an inclusion by empowering more than just the suburban areas.

There is a ticking time bomb in the make-up of our dwellings, a redress that is desperately needed.

It may not necessarily be a conversation around undocumented nationals versus a natural citizen – this is a conversation around the humiliating kind of poverty once mentioned by an Economic Freedom Fighters member of parliament.

It is more in the poverty that resources are fought over so bitterly that hostilities begin to fester, making tracks in crime.

From petty crime to violent crime, all the way to mob justice. We need to address poverty holistically to heal as a nation.