Miloon Kothari, United Nations special rapporteur for adequate housing, was appalled at the living conditions of Johannesburg’s poor. “These are emergency conditions … it’s worse than I expected,” he said on Tuesday, walking through San Jose, a dilapidated, 16-storey building in Berea.
Kothari is on a two-week visit to assess the state of housing and land rights in the country. Guided by researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), he visited poor peripheral communities and derelict inner-city buildings like San Jose to gauge the government’s efforts to care for the housing needs of the poor.
Outside the moribund San Jose, Kothari spoke to a crowd of residents that had gathered to meet him. “We support everyone’s right to adequate housing,” he said, “But it is not happening, so we are here to investigate and to support your struggle for your housing rights.”
“There is clearly a very large national housing crisis,” he told the Mail & Guardian Online. “It is partly a legacy of apartheid and the past land dispensations. But a distinction must be made between that and what could and should be done now.”
Based in India, Kothari was appointed special rapporteur in 2000. He is an architect by training and has great experience working in the areas of housing and land rights. Dressed in a traditional Indian kurta shirt and black pants, he walked through the area interacting with residents about their housing conditions and everyday experiences in the city’s tougher neighbourhoods.
He was visibly affected by the living conditions of the people he met. He said the situation in many inner-city apartment buildings was “horrible” and “dangerous”.
San Jose’s residents are among the city’s poorest, earning less than R600 a month, and live without basic water, electricity and sanitation.
Resident Nelson Khathani led the rapporteur through the decaying building, explaining that garbage is only collected about once a month. The basement is blocked with sewage and faeces, which residents try to clean out once a week.
“It is a humanitarian situation that needs to be sorted out soon. Things like policies and time frames — none of that excuses the fact that people who live in these conditions are suffering health and safety problems, especially children,” Kothari said.
San Jose has been earmarked for regeneration by the city, which last month won an appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) when it ruled that the city could evict residents of buildings such as these. However, the judgement is being appealed at the Constitutional Court, Cals announced this week.
“The state has a moral duty to provide adequate housing. And the judgment [by the SCA] does not keep with the moral obligation to provide for people who can’t afford it,” Kothari agreed.
Development
The judgement was made regarding San Jose and another derelict building on Main Street in the inner city. A few houses on Berea’s Joel Street were initially also part of the court case, but were ruled to be safe for human habitation.
Kothari visited the houses, which are crumbling and subdivided to accommodate a separate family in each room. They have no legal electricity connections, and shacks have been set up outside to house even more people.
“It’s not about safety,” said Stuart Wilson, a researcher at Cals. “The city is only interested in large buildings they can give over to property developers.”
On Saratoga Avenue, near the Ellis Park precinct that is a key 2010 focus area, an old warehouse has been turned into makeshift housing. Thin wooden slats partition the spaces, and there is no water or electricity. Private property owners are trying to evict the residents, who are often raided by the police.
“Private developers can be included, but they have to be involved in a way that the poor can also be involved,” Kothari said. “The government must have the last say. If [development is] given over totally to the private sector, it won’t serve poorer [people’s] needs.
“Things like market rules, property values and gentrification cause a divide between the rich and the poor. It leads to a new form of segregation, not along race but economics.
“My question to the municipality would be: Why is the municipality not upgrading the buildings and making them safe? Why [after renovation] do the buildings not go to those living there for so long?”
Kothari said the municipality has the money to provide for the poor.
“The resources are there; it’s a question of what you prioritise. The conditions of the most poor people should be the first priority, not things like 2010 and tourism … It’s important that we don’t have for years and years people living in derelict buildings without access to services.
“We can’t say we are respecting people’s rights to housing as is [written] in the Constitution when people live like that.”
Right to water
Kothari also visited Phiri in Soweto, where he met residents who have to rely on a metre system in order to get water. The complicated system uses a metre installed outside each property, and works by users visiting vendors to top up their water supply. The system has no indicators that inform users when the supply is about to run out.
“I was surprised by the metre system. It does not appear to be a just solution … That policy leads to serious compromises for the poor,” Kothari said.
He said he was very disturbed by the situation of water privatisation, and will be taking the issue up with government officials during his trip.
On Wednesday, Kothari held a workshop with a number of civil society organisations to get a clearer picture of the issues affecting the country. Discussions included the eviction of mineworkers, the right to water and the challenges facing landless people.
The rapporteur has already been to Limpopo and the Northern Cape; he will still be visiting Durban and Cape Town before presenting a preliminary report on his findings in the coming week.