South Africa's affordable-housing programme is maturing, but the delivery pressures are mounting: "South Africa’s affordable-housing programme is maturing, but the delivery pressures are mounting
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By: Dennis Ndaba
11th July 2008
TEXT SIZE The areas which were engulfed by violence and attacks on foreign nationals were in informal settlements and in hostels. These areas often experience a lack of service delivery and are where the poorest people reside. Characteristic of the violence in some areas is a lack of development, while in others there is a suspicion among some residents that they will be left out of the delivery of houses and services.”
This was one of the main conclusions of the ‘Report of the Task Team of Members of Parliament Probing Violence and Attacks on Foreign Nationals’ released in late June, highlighting, once again, the importance of housing delivery in safeguarding social stability.
It is not a new realisation, though. After the 1994 transition to democracy, it was generally accepted that it was imperative to stabilise housing provisioning, to overcome the fragmented housing regime with its skewed racial focus and to immediately start delivery.
Indeed, the African National Congress’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) noted that the lack of adequate housing and basic services in urban townships and rural settlements had “reached crisis proportions”. It went on to endorse the principle of ‘housing as a human right’, adding that one of “the RDP’s first priorities is to provide for the homeless”.
On average, 250 000 subsidised houses were built every year"