Low cost housing for whites: "Low cost housing for whites"
East London - White families living in shacks and caravan parks in the East London area are not excluded from government's housing programmes because of their race, the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements said on SaturdaySpokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said a number of families who were living below the poverty line had complained to the government because they thought that they did not qualify for housing."Some white families are living in shacks close to the beach and in caravan parks beside dumps," Sicwetsha said."They think they do not qualify for housing programmes, but white families living below the poverty line are not excluded from government housing programmes because of their race."The department has an inclusive housing policy and programmes for all races who qualify for different categories on housing programmes."Sicwetsha said the department had different categories geared towards providing houses to people in the province.Such programmes include low cost housing scheme for people with a monthly income of less than R3 500 per month.Those who earn above this amount qualify for other schemes such as social rental housing scheme which accommodates people with a monthly income of between R3 500 and R7 500 per month."In an effort to close this gap the department has granted funding to social housing companies to build rental housing units in Nelson Mandela Metro and Buffalo City, earmarked to provide decent affordable rental homes to hundreds of low and middle income workers." President Jacob Zuma recently handed over housing units to Emerald Sky, a social housing project that accommodates all races who meet the required income of between R3 500 and R7 500 a month.Sicwetsha said three other projects were under construction in the Nelson Mandela Metro and Buffalo City Municipalities.The one in Buffalo City was nearing completion."White families who qualify on these programmes must contact the responsible social housing companies for applications and those who earn less than R3 500 per month must apply through their local municipalities for low cost housing assistance," Sicwetsha said.
Keywords - Tokyo Sexwale, President Jacob Zuma, Nelson Mandela Metro, moladi, low cost housing, poor, housing program, race, poverty, social housing, rental housing
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Low cost housing - Bisho spends R360 million to fix broken homes
Daily Dispatch Online
2009/07/30
BHISHO is spending R360 million to fix nearly 20 000 broken homes in the province while the poor live in flimsy cardboard units and ghost towns emerge from the ruins of disastrous housing projects.
In some areas of the province communities have deserted formal housing settlements because the homes were so poorly built they cannot live in them any longer.
The number of homes having to be repaired is more than the total number of 19662 houses delivered in the 2006/2007 financial year.
While the provincial government tries to rein in its backlog of 800 000 RDP homes, a two-month investigation by the Dispatch has revealed how:
Homes were built in areas which people have long since left;
One project in Seymour became State-sponsored “holiday homes” for people who live in other cities and only return in December;
Residents in Burgersdorp were moved into cardboard houses when their RDP homes began falling to the ground, and were then asked to clean up the mess themselves;
One project of 600 homes in Tarkastad has been standing empty, while a waiting list to house people continues to grow;
Depopulation and inferior construction in places like Venterstad has led to the emergence of ghost towns; and
A community near Bhisho is still waiting after five years for electricity and water because the government refuses to provide the services until it has finished the housing project it started eight years ago.
The biggest victims in the province’s housing fiasco are among the most vulnerable in the population.
Like two pensioners, Loki Makeleni and Ngqukuse Nonxaza, who have been living in a flimsy cardboard home for seven months while their shoddy RDP house in Burgersdorp is repaired.
“The government doesn’t care about people who live here. We’re going to die in these houses. I’m just waiting for my coffin right now,” said the elderly Makeleni.
To rub salt into their wounds, the local Gariep Municipality wanted the same residents to clear the tons of rubble lining the streets – for free.
The problems in Burgersdorp are far from unique – in fact, all but one of eight housing projects visited by the Dispatch are being rebuilt .
In many cases inexperienced contractors have been blamed for the problems .
Two weeks ago Housing MEC Nombulelo Mabandla vowed to blacklist incompetent builders and recover funds from them where necessary.
But she said her department would never forsake emerging contractors and would do all they could to mentor them in future.
“ That is why we have developed a training programme for them, called the Emerging Contractors Development Programme,” she said.
Seymour and Venterstad are two examples where RDP homes have been deserted or remain unoccupied because there are no local jobs, or poor workmanship has made the buildings unsafe.
Yet the reverse has happened in Tarkastad, where more than 600 residents are on a waiting list to occupy low- cost homes in a nearby project that is standing empty.
Derek Luyt from the Public Service Accountability Monitor in Grahamstown said the department’s Service Delivery Charter and Service Delivery Plans for 2009 and 2010 highlight its pitfalls.
“Staff shortages and lack of sufficient skills have severely hampered the department in the past, and it will not be able to deliver sufficient houses of adequate quality unless it solves its human resources problems,” Luyt said.
Democratic Alliance spokesperson Pine Pienaar said the huge backlog, lack of monitoring and under-spending in the department was a direct result of the department’s inefficiency to fill critical posts in technical and finance departments. - By GCINA NTSALUBA. Pictures: THEO JEPTHA
2009/07/30
BHISHO is spending R360 million to fix nearly 20 000 broken homes in the province while the poor live in flimsy cardboard units and ghost towns emerge from the ruins of disastrous housing projects.
In some areas of the province communities have deserted formal housing settlements because the homes were so poorly built they cannot live in them any longer.
The number of homes having to be repaired is more than the total number of 19662 houses delivered in the 2006/2007 financial year.
While the provincial government tries to rein in its backlog of 800 000 RDP homes, a two-month investigation by the Dispatch has revealed how:
Homes were built in areas which people have long since left;
One project in Seymour became State-sponsored “holiday homes” for people who live in other cities and only return in December;
Residents in Burgersdorp were moved into cardboard houses when their RDP homes began falling to the ground, and were then asked to clean up the mess themselves;
One project of 600 homes in Tarkastad has been standing empty, while a waiting list to house people continues to grow;
Depopulation and inferior construction in places like Venterstad has led to the emergence of ghost towns; and
A community near Bhisho is still waiting after five years for electricity and water because the government refuses to provide the services until it has finished the housing project it started eight years ago.
The biggest victims in the province’s housing fiasco are among the most vulnerable in the population.
Like two pensioners, Loki Makeleni and Ngqukuse Nonxaza, who have been living in a flimsy cardboard home for seven months while their shoddy RDP house in Burgersdorp is repaired.
“The government doesn’t care about people who live here. We’re going to die in these houses. I’m just waiting for my coffin right now,” said the elderly Makeleni.
To rub salt into their wounds, the local Gariep Municipality wanted the same residents to clear the tons of rubble lining the streets – for free.
The problems in Burgersdorp are far from unique – in fact, all but one of eight housing projects visited by the Dispatch are being rebuilt .
In many cases inexperienced contractors have been blamed for the problems .
Two weeks ago Housing MEC Nombulelo Mabandla vowed to blacklist incompetent builders and recover funds from them where necessary.
But she said her department would never forsake emerging contractors and would do all they could to mentor them in future.
“ That is why we have developed a training programme for them, called the Emerging Contractors Development Programme,” she said.
Seymour and Venterstad are two examples where RDP homes have been deserted or remain unoccupied because there are no local jobs, or poor workmanship has made the buildings unsafe.
Yet the reverse has happened in Tarkastad, where more than 600 residents are on a waiting list to occupy low- cost homes in a nearby project that is standing empty.
Derek Luyt from the Public Service Accountability Monitor in Grahamstown said the department’s Service Delivery Charter and Service Delivery Plans for 2009 and 2010 highlight its pitfalls.
“Staff shortages and lack of sufficient skills have severely hampered the department in the past, and it will not be able to deliver sufficient houses of adequate quality unless it solves its human resources problems,” Luyt said.
Democratic Alliance spokesperson Pine Pienaar said the huge backlog, lack of monitoring and under-spending in the department was a direct result of the department’s inefficiency to fill critical posts in technical and finance departments. - By GCINA NTSALUBA. Pictures: THEO JEPTHA
Big business at human settlements
Big business at human settlements
What Housing Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said in his departmental budget speech yesterday was not particularly revolutionary, but the way he said it was unfamiliar.
Sexwale used the language of corporate finance to describe the role of his department, saying that its ability to draw “the unbanked” and “uncreditworthy” into the formal economy by providing them with capital assets would play a key role in developing South Africa’s poorest citizens, as well as boosting the nation as a whole.
He also argued that housing and human settlements are, more directly, an extremely powerful “economic multiplier”, because of the stimulus given to a massive range of businesses when houses are built and when people set up new homes.
Sexwale said he would continue working closely with big business, particularly banks, who he said could be persuaded to go the extra mile beyond Corporate Social Investment because of the importance of these partnerships to the development of South Africa’s economy. He affirmed that “consultation will be the golden thread that runs through this administration”, that he had sat with big business and knows what they are doing, and that he would remain “a student”.
Sexwale sounded a cautious note about the future, saying that the global financial crisis means South Africa must be prepared to handle potential budget cuts, and that rapidly increasing urbanisation was a global reality that cannot be ignored.
He also spoke out against poorly-run or fly-by-night SMME contractors who, he said, have a tendency to “never stop emerging” because they don’t do proper business, confusing revenue with profit and capital with wealth. “Government needs value for money,” he stated.
Other speakers described the finalising of the Rural Housing Subsidy Vouchers, the Housing Development Agency and the continuation of the Breaking New Ground programme, while some called for national policies on hostel and backyard dwellers.
There was frequent mention of the need for better quality housing that was more energy efficient, and the Deputy Minister said more inspectors were being trained to ensure housing was up to standard.
While other speakers haggled over the progress made in the Breaking New Ground (BNG) programme’s flagship N2 Gateway project, Sexwale made it clear that he didn’t want to argue about things like the semantics of a new name, but would focus on getting to business.
Speaking the solution that moladi has proposed for the last 20 years
What Housing Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said in his departmental budget speech yesterday was not particularly revolutionary, but the way he said it was unfamiliar.
Sexwale used the language of corporate finance to describe the role of his department, saying that its ability to draw “the unbanked” and “uncreditworthy” into the formal economy by providing them with capital assets would play a key role in developing South Africa’s poorest citizens, as well as boosting the nation as a whole.
He also argued that housing and human settlements are, more directly, an extremely powerful “economic multiplier”, because of the stimulus given to a massive range of businesses when houses are built and when people set up new homes.
Sexwale said he would continue working closely with big business, particularly banks, who he said could be persuaded to go the extra mile beyond Corporate Social Investment because of the importance of these partnerships to the development of South Africa’s economy. He affirmed that “consultation will be the golden thread that runs through this administration”, that he had sat with big business and knows what they are doing, and that he would remain “a student”.
Sexwale sounded a cautious note about the future, saying that the global financial crisis means South Africa must be prepared to handle potential budget cuts, and that rapidly increasing urbanisation was a global reality that cannot be ignored.
He also spoke out against poorly-run or fly-by-night SMME contractors who, he said, have a tendency to “never stop emerging” because they don’t do proper business, confusing revenue with profit and capital with wealth. “Government needs value for money,” he stated.
Other speakers described the finalising of the Rural Housing Subsidy Vouchers, the Housing Development Agency and the continuation of the Breaking New Ground programme, while some called for national policies on hostel and backyard dwellers.
There was frequent mention of the need for better quality housing that was more energy efficient, and the Deputy Minister said more inspectors were being trained to ensure housing was up to standard.
While other speakers haggled over the progress made in the Breaking New Ground (BNG) programme’s flagship N2 Gateway project, Sexwale made it clear that he didn’t want to argue about things like the semantics of a new name, but would focus on getting to business.
Speaking the solution that moladi has proposed for the last 20 years
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