The uncertainty, the secrecy, the gnawing fear at each knock on the door, the exorbitant rents paid with no murmur of complaint. But there’s a good side too: the feeling that this is your home, it is your right to live here in peace …
Black people talk about living in Hillbrow quietly at first, then anger boils slowly up and over, every time. Fingers stab emphatically into the air, knives and spoons tap insistently on kitchen tabletops. These, they insist, are their homes and they will not move readily.
It’s ironic that the walls between the box-homes of Hillbrow, Berea and Joubert Park, so readily associated in the past with alienated, lonely, even desperate living, are being broken down by people who are not supposed to be there at all.
It’s ironic to see a drunken white couple lurching around – “Are you coming or must I pull you by your hair?” – on the steps of the block where Selinah, a 38-year-old cleaner from Mafikeng, lives with her husband. (Like most of the tenants interviewed she refused to give her surname for fear of victimisation.) They’ve just spent a Sunday painting their single room. “When I came here this flat was a cave, and now it is a home. Here in the building it is also very nice,” she says.
“We come together when there are problems, we don’t need to involve the police.” Two years ago, they were living in a backyard cottage in Bramley because her employers would offer her no more than a bed in a women’s hostel. “It was very nice, but we knew lots of white people were moving overseas, and this place was not ours, so we thought let’s find our own place and pay rent.”
The move to Hillbrow also meant that Selinah, who used to leave for work at 4,30am, could set off two hours later. The R250 they pay for rent and services, she believes, is not a problem. “With black people in Soweto, you spend nearly the same amount,” she says. “The electricity can drive you mad (in Soweto). You are out the whole day, and then you pay one-hundred-and-something for electricity, R60 for water. It becomes more than the R250 I am paying.”
Selinah did not feel like a black person in white area “There is nothing like that in my ideas,” she says, but “with white people, you can never really know how they feel. “They pretend they like us, but I don’t think they do. But I have been living among whites for a long time, and I know how to handle them. I know how-they behave and I know what they want. “Selinah has decided not to get anxious about the threats to their homes they hear and read about: “We’ve got about 55 000 people here. I ask myself how they can get rid of all of us in three months.”
But that does little for her anger. “Why should we move out? People said we could never pay the rent, and we have proved we can. “If the police come for me, I will ask them where I should go. And if they arrest me, I will ask the magistrate. And I will tell him that the place where I am is South Africa, nowhere else. “Whites get everything easy, even those from outside who go away again, and we, we’re here forever.”
Selinah’s building is clean, well-lit and newly-painted the kind of place Haya van Dorsen has tried to run in the three blocks she takes care of. “Unfortunately I don’t have any white tenants, although the ones I did have never paid their rent,” Van Dorsen says. “I can’t imagine wealthy whites occupying these flats. “Up to 1984, there were not many African tenants in this area but after that landlords could see buildings were vacant and took the chance. Now there are more Africans than Indians or coloured people.” She says all her tenants are reliable with rent and look after their flats: “Black people hold on to what they’ve got because they’re not sure they will get something better.”
Auntie Haya, as she is known, angrily rejects claims that black people are responsible for increased crime in the area. “When I took over this building, there had been an unsolved murder, rape and narcotics dealing in this building. Even if the Group Areas does hit us, I can say we’ve brought respectability to this place.” But not all buildings in Hillbrow have an atmosphere like this. “The lift was your introduction,” says Saide after an enforced walk up the fire escape to his two-roomed flat.
Saide also refused w give a full name. “When my kid goes out to play, I take a broom and clean up first,” he says, gesturing down the passage towards rubbish piled up in heaps, as it is on every floor. A sign at the entrance says “Regular servicing of these premises by Rentokil Laboratories helps to ensure high standards of hygiene.” R100 of the R270 rent residents pay is described as a “service charge” (the basic rent alone is higher than the amount specified by the Rent Board for “legal” ie white tenants).
But the place is filthy, outside lights never work and the landlord’s refusal to provide more than four washing-lines for 78 flats makes you wonder at his meanness. “The government is giving landlords the slack to oppress us, they are killing us because we are illegals. No white person would pay R270 for this,” he says.
Ellen and Vusi, a brother and sister from Lamontville, Durban, pay R25 more than that, for two rooms they share with two others. “I took this flat over from a white woman at work, who was paying R 150 a month. It went up to R295 in the second month I was here,” Ellen says. There are candles in the rooms and a paraffin stove in the kitchen. They’ve had no power for two months, but that hasn’t held up the electricity bills. The bed in the largest room is made up on two sides.
Vusi, 24, and Ellen, 26, share the room, so they can let out the other. “The rent is so high we have to share,” she says. Vusi has been sharing living space since he came to Johannesburg two years ago. A student in business administration, he lived in a room in Soweto’s Dube hostel, with seven others, none of them students. He managed to study and even managed to pass, but he was glad to leave the dirty, overcrowded hostel, with its outside toilet. But he doesn’t feel quite at home in Hillbrow.
During election time, he and Ellen decided to go to a public meeting they saw advertised on posters and in the press. “It was to discuss blacks living in Hillbrow,” Ellen says. “When we got there, we were told to go, it was not for us. The poster didn’t say only white people must come.” Still it’s not too bad, relaxing on the balcony on a Sunday afternoon, with a few quarts and a friend. “But when you walk around, police can ask you where you come from and search you,” says Vusi. “That never happens to white people. It’s better just to stay inside.”
That is not how Styles, 38, who came up from Langa to play music, feels: “Those days of our fathers, when they were afraid to be in white areas, are no more. I just walk like I would in Soweto. Look for yourself – nobody is afraid.” Styles feels comfortable too in his single room down a narrow ground-floor passage, which he’s carpeted, furnished and filled with music from a fine stereo. It only sours when he talks about rent.
“We pay R225 and we know the whites in the building pay less,” he says. “If you ask the caretaker about it, he will say if you don’t want the room there is somebody else.” Not that he has plans to leave. “I don’t want to talk, I do what I want with my money. I’m in the theatre and the clubs, and everything is in town. “When my brother-in-law in Soweto asked why I don’t come there, I said I’m going to Parktown next. He thinks I’m joking.”
Khanyapa Molapo also feels at home in Hillbrow. His job as a data processing consultant comfortably carries the R250 rent he pays for a roomy, airy flat in a skyscraper. “This is not the best I could afford,” he says. He and his wife visit friends for dinner and watch videos, go to movies, eat in restaurants and hotels. “In the building, I know someone on every floor. It feels normal,” he says.
“I feel relieved that life is back to normal.” “When I moved to Soweto from my home in Sebokeng, where I grew up with seven other kids, I lived in a room this size,” he says, waving around the small entrance hall-cum-kitchen in his flat. “This held my bed, wardrobe, a little stove, a TV and a radio. The toilet was outside.” “The kind of job I do is professional, I must wear a suit. If you don’t come from a properly organised home, there is no way you can perform. “We don’t stay here on special rates. These flats were built to be let to humans and we pay the right rent.”
Molapo says he would like to own a house some day, but Soweto would be the last place he would buy. “The best area, Selection Park, offers townhouses, one on top of the other, like sardines,” he says. “At R 120 000 they are a rip-off. For the same money, you could get much better in Parkview.” Meanwhile, he says, they are going to stay until “we have to pick up our clothes from the street below. “What is so impossible about living together? I mean what makes a Portuguese nearer to a Jew than to me? After beginning a normal life, I could end up a squatter.”
Brown, a printer, also won’t go back to Soweto again, if he can help it, despite remembering every place he’s lived up and down the township for the past 27 years since he came to Johannesburg. Last year he left the single Diepkloof room he’d shared with his wife and four children, sent them back to Louis Trichardt and moved himself into a quiet Hillbrow block.
“The kids wouldn’t attend school. They would go there and one-two-three, the teargas is on, the whole shooting business. The children came home crying and I was getting very angry at that. Kids are dying like flies. I said, if I have money, I will leave this place.”
Brown, 49, would like to have his, family with him, “but there is no school for small African children in town, and the multi-racial schools are too expensive. Even so, I am very happy here. “This new thing has hurt me very bad. I remember Botha saying you can stay where you feel like, in town and in the suburbs. Nobody said this wasn’t true then, but now after this reform election, they say something different.
“People say blah blah, you are living in a white area, but I myself, I’ve got no colour bar. “But we are not supposed to say a word. They don’t want to hear the truth. When they do, they say it’s politics.” – John Perlman
Group Areas: How the law stands today
The following is the current legal position according to a Legal Resources Centre representative In Johannesburg: If an area “such as Hillbrow falls into a white group area, a “disqualified” person (ie, a black person) can’t live there without a permit. These are theoretically available, but very few are issued. A white married to a “non-white” takes the partner’s colour, the general rule being that both partners adopt the race of whoever is darker. This affects mixed marriage couples living in Hillbrow and other grey areas. The penalty for living illegally in an area is R400 or two years imprisonment, or both. First offenders generally’ receive less than this.
Landlords are also liable for prosecution if they allow illegal occupation. The court can order an eviction, following a conviction, but this cannot form part of the sentence. Following a Transvaal Supreme Court ruling, an eviction order has to be applied for separately and has to take into account, amongst other things, the availability of alternative accommodation. The ban on occupation in a group area does hot cover a bona fide visitor (to a bona fide resident) for up to 90 days in any calendar year. It also doesn’t cover guests in hotels.
The repeal of the Black (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, which stated that Africans could not live outside townships, means African tenants now occupy the same legal position in this regard as Indians and coloureds. Curfew legislation, which only affected Africans and could be used to keep them out of the city, has also been repealed. “Disqualified” tenants are not protected by rent control regulations, as “the one law cancels out the other”, according to a rent board representative. – Ruth Becker
From wary treading to organising
The government’s headache is not just the presence of thousands of illegal blacks in whire areas. It’s the presence of vocal, organised blacks. John Perlman reports
The knot of people in the courtyard, lit up by the lights of 20 floors of flats on every side, grew steadily as people looking out through windows high above made their way slowly down the fire escape. When the crowd was big enough, the tenants’ organiser who had called the meeting got things going: “If you don’t come to meetings, don’t call us up when you get evicted.” Johannesburg has had an organisation to fight Group Areas evictions before.
Actstop (Action to Stop Evictions) gave threatened tenants legal and physical support and campaigned publicly against the Group Areas Act for four years. By 1983, the state had begun to ease up on evictions and prosecutions, and Actstop suspended operations. But the organisation now growing in Hillbrow and surrounding areas plans to do things differently.
A member of the organising committee and a veteran of previous campaigns, said: “Actstop achieved a lot in opposing evictions, but it was a group of people doing things for other people. “Last weekend we met with people in one block who are paying a R 100 service fee, but the place is filthy. They have drawn up a petition to the landlord stating that they will withdraw the fee from June if this doesn’t change. “Before, we would have said, ‘OK here is our lawyer’s number, send a representative to him tomorrow and he will help you draw it up.’ This time all we did was make suggestions about wording”
At present, committees are being set up in each building, and these will elect an executive committee at a later date. “Tenants themselves are doing the bulk of the work. We hope to build the foundations of mom permanent residents’ organisations. If it fails they will realize that if you do nothing, nothing will happen.” Residents, it seems, are ready to respond.
“At Ieast 50 percent of the black people living in these areas now are African, whereas in the earlier Actstop experience, about 95 percent were Indian and coloured people. We are also dealing with much bigger total numbers — in excess of 30 000 compared to 10 000. “In our previous experience, most people had moved from other provinces because of the failing economy there in the post-’76 period.
Now we find a lot are from around Johannesburg, which shows the failure of housing policy in those areas. Even the natural increase of population cannot be accommodated. “We are noticing that the rate of exploitation of African tenants is much higher. In one particular block, Indian and coloured people pay R220 and Africans R280. It shows that landlords are confident of having their way with them. It also shows the lengths people go to seek shelter, and the desperation of the situation in this country.”
But as more and more people meet in response to the eviction threat, issues like high rents and poor living conditions are coming to the fore. “African people took a bold step moving into the city, and for a time they were treading quite warily. “You let certain things lie for a while, but then you say, no man, I can’t carry on paying this extra R200, I can’t send my child out to play in this muck again. No guy on his own is going to get up and say I’ll speak to the landlord; but with an organisation, people feel at least we will all go or stay together.
“An important movement is that people are starting to socialise with tenants in other blocks. In one of them, they are planning to have a braai, and to invite the white people in the building and the landlord. l’d say that’s a smart move. It seems that in about 30 percent of the flats where black people live, there are still some white tenants.”
Actstop made extensive use of the courts to oppose evictions – there were 750 cases pending at the time when it suspended operation, all of which were dropped. But, like the emerging organisation, Actstop always insisted that the Group Areas Act had to be scrapped.
“Legal action can postpone things, but it can’t change the situation, because the government can chop and change the law as they please. We have always said that the Group Areas Act has no place in South African society. We will resist evictions until it is repealed. “There is also the moral argument that people should be allowed to live where they choose, that settled communities shouldn’t be uprooted. It is not something new, it’s been going on for decades. “No community wants to be uprooted purely for racial reasons, black or white.”
A grey blur in landlord eyes
Landlords make no secret of the fact that more than half the residents of downtown flats are black. And they’re not expecting any crackdowns either. Ruth Becker reports
“Grey Areas” are not only those places where black mixes with white. They are also rather grey areas in the minds of property owners, estate agent, and traders in Johannesburg. Hillbrow Traders’ Association representative Peter Rose doesn’t believe there will be “any action on group areas” in Hillbrow. As far as a post-election clampdown on grey areas goes, “nothing is happening in Hillbrow,” he says. “It’s just newspaper talk. We know. We’re here.” And he sees no potential threat to the traders in the area either.
Johannesburg Central Business District Association chief Nigel Mandy referred Weekly Mail to this month’s newsletter for a statement on group areas. It states: “… it is no secret that probably more than half of the residents of flats in downtown are not white. They have rented apartments which previously stood vacant and increasingly – impelled by housing shortages and long commuting distances – they are living in old office buildings, warehouses and factories too.”
The government argument that it is preserving separate cultural, educational and social institutions through the Group Areas Act has no relevance in the Johannesburg CBD where people of all races are present in large numbers everywhere every day and business, entertainment, cultural, sporting and religious facilities have by law – since February 1986 – been accessible to everyone,” the newsletter states. It notes with relief “deputy minister Piet Badenburst’s reassurances that government will maintain the status quo in ‘grey’ areas of central Johannesburg, pending the outcome of an investigation by the Group Areas Board”.
The SA Property Owners’ Association could not comment on the effect of group areas on property values as none of its members, unlike those in the residential market has been threatened thus far, a representative said Ede Field of SAPOA’s Group Areas Act Committee noted that South Africa has few facts concerning the effects of the Act on property values. However one property owner, who represents a major estate agent and has observed recent trends amongst landlords, offered his views on the presence of “disqualified” people in “white” areas. He asked not to be named.
“There is no doubt, following trends, that there has been a surplus in the residential market as of last year. (Landlords) were finding it difficult to get tenants and have been letting to blacks to take up the surplus.” This has bolstered the letting market to quite an extent, he says, but in his view owners are not “taking advantage” of the housing shortage for blacks although he agreed “some landlords will take advantage of the situation”.
Asked whether he had experienced situations where landlords increased rent when a black tenant replaced a white tenant he outlined different approaches among landlords: “Firstly you can say we live in a capitalist society and the price of an item is what someone will pay for it, and there’s a greater demand in one sector. “Some landlords will add a small percentage for what they would call ‘nuisance value’: they could be raided by police, other tenants could take offence and move out creating vacancies. So landlords could take the view that they are also taking a risk and need to offset the downside.”
But he sees the discrimination issue as “slightly overstated. “Blocks that have been unoccupied in the past, probably are getting higher rentals from blacks, but it’s 10 or 20 percent more, not double. “It’s a straightforward commercial arrangement. Most landlords would probably rather let to whites. But they face a vacancy situation, they let to blacks and they find it’s not as bad as they expected.”
He added that he had heard of landlords who deliberately let a flat to blacks to empty a building, for example to bypass rent control or to force out old people who have become statutory tenants. On the question of a landlord’s commitment to maintaining a building where the tenants are living illegally he said: “They have to. From the property owner’s point of view, maintenance is to ensure the longevity of the building and the investment. “Generally you find the standard maintained by black tenants is substantially higher than that of whites.
“Let’s call a spade a spade … One is dealing with the middle-upper section of black society, compared with the absolute bottom of white society.” It is difficult to gauge the number of blacks living in white areas, he says, because “some managing agents insist a company takes file flat” on behalf of a black employee. Consequently there are few signs, “other than lots of companies renting what would be inexpensive flats”.
So what’s the problem? I just want to live here
Life as an ‘illegal’. One woman tells of her seven years of tension, raids and evictions. But she hasn’t let them move her out … John Perlman reports
Rhodia Abrahams was hounded out of her home during Johannesburg’s last round of Group Areas Act evictions, and seven years later she still finds it difficult to talk about it. “Now we know what to expect, but I don’t think the new people in town do,” she says. In 1979, Abrahams, then 22, came up from Cape Town with her brother, looking for work and “a decent place to stay. It was my first time away from home and my first in Johannesburg. Caretakers took one look at us and they would refuse”.
There were similar problems at employment agencies. “The first time I went to Kelly Girl, the woman there asked me ‘What is your nationality?” When I said ‘Cape Malay’ she didn’t know what that was, but still pointed me towards the sections for Indian and coloured people.
“At that time Sasol was full of Capetonians – artisans, carpenters and builders – and their wives and families came up to Jo’burg. There were also white Rhodesians scrambling into the country, and they were getting the places to live and the jobs. You would go to the agencies, for jobs and flats, and you would see the same faces in each.”
Abrahams eventually found a place to live. By the time she had found a job, the evictions bad started. “They seemed to prefer coming in winter, between two and four in the morning, when it was really cold.” Residents would shout warnings to their neighbours when the police came, but families were picked off one-by-one, until Abrahams and her brother were the last black people in the block. “We decided not to open our door,” she recalls.
“You couldn’t switch the lights on. They waited for you after work, so some days you couldn’t come home until much later, when you would tip-toe into the flat. You need your home, you can’t stay away from it.” They were eventually thrown out and moved to another block. There was another eviction, another appearance in court, another trip back to Cape Town.
“In the third building, I had my three daughters with me, and you can only get away with children for so long. The baby was trained not to cry when there was a knock on the door. The kids would get back from school, and could only go out once or twice after that – it’s horrible to have to do that to a child.”
Rhodia came home from work one rainy evening to find her children and her possessions on the pavement People had helped themselves to things from the pile. “There was this cop, a really hard guy, who had arrested me each of the times. I said to him, what is the problem? I pay rent, I just want to live here. If I apply for a house, being from Cape Town, my name will go to the bottom of the list.
“He said he was determined to get every black out of this building. If he didn’t succeed, he would throw himself off the top off John Vorster Square. “It’s not easy to talk about it, when you know it could happen again. We were totally alone, that was the worst part. The only people who weren’t evicted, the whites, kept their doors firmly locked.”
Abrahams felt she couldn’t keep going back to Cape Town every time this happened. “I asked a guy at work, would you mind me borrowing your colour for a bit. He went with me to get a flat, and I lived a very quiet life there for the next three years.
“I didn’t go out too often, I didn’t have friends around.” “I sometimes think, the landlords should be fighting this, why should we be involved? We pay them rent we make them rich. They should deal with it “