Soweto’s Dube hostel — plagued in recent weeks by violent protests against poor service delivery — resembles a ghost town.
Washing swaying in the wind is the only sign of life, along with the dank smell of urine mingled with that of burnt rubbish.
The smell grows stronger until the senses grow accustomed to it.
This is the welcome mat greeting residents and guests alike at the hostel built in 1955 to house migrant workers.
The rubbish-strewn, uneven sand roads are lined with dilapidated housing blocks with broken doors and windows with filthy communal toilets, scattered between.
The 290-block hostel is home mostly for unemployed families, many of them from KwaZulu-Natal who moved to the ”City of Gold” in search of jobs and a better life for their families.
Today, a room at the hostel, intended for one person, houses up to four people with a number of children.
”In winter we are freezing. Some of us sleep on the bed and some of us on the floor. There is no hot water and no electricity,” said 22-year-old Sindiswa Mbatha.
She moved to Johannesburg from KwaZulu-Natal with her mother and two younger sisters four years ago.
”My mum came looking for a job, but she died in 2005. Now I live with my sisters and my two children. We have nowhere to go. It’s also dangerous here. There are big rats and the bathrooms are damaged.”
Another resident, Sibusiso Mhlambo (21) lives in a room — with his wife and two children — large enough only for his bed.
”The room is crowded, the floor is hard and cold, but we have to sleep on it,” he said.
Mbatha said the hostel dwellers have constantly tried to contact government asking them to visit the hostel.
”No one comes here. The councillor didn’t come at all this year. Last year the councillor came once only,” she complained.
”That is why the people are angry.”
”[Amos] Masondo [Johannesburg mayor] doesn’t stay here and his family is not here, he does not know the situation here,” she said.
Hostel residents were called to protest against the lack of service delivery a few weeks ago to attract the government’s attention where they handed over a memorandum to the city.
They were expecting a response to the memorandum by June 28.
Project manager for housing at the city of Johannesburg, Sheila Mahlangu, said the city was trying to address the problem, but that it would take ”a while” because of red tape.
The city’s communication’s director, Gabu Tugwana, added that before any development could take place, processes like tendering, finance and the submission of plans had to be finalised.
”So it could take up to a year before anything could happen.”
In the meantime some parts of the hostel have been repaired.
However, these sections still do not have hot water and proper sanitation.
At the hostel, illegal electricity connections could be seen running from a ”repaired” block to other rooms requiring power.
Zandisile Dlamini lives in a hostel room with three walls, with bricks, blankets and two trolleys holding together a fourth.
She shares her one room with her elderly mother and two small children, using a paraffin stove to keep warm and to cook and sleeping on makeshift mattresses on the concrete floor.
They too share the communal toilets, which according to Mbatha, residents sometimes come to blows over.
The communal bathrooms that have been repaired have showers and flush toilets, while those in unrepaired blocks have tin roofs, three walls and no doors.
They stand in an open spot of land, covered in rubbish and dried faeces.
Pointing at them in disgust, Mbatha said: ”Look at these toilets, they don’t work and they are filthy.”
Mahlangu admitted that sanitation was a major challenge the city faced in improving the lives of hostel dwellers.
”Maintenance is expensive and the people here don’t value what they get. They don’t know how to look after the place.”
Security was another problem the hostel dwellers faced.
Many of the residents were afraid to venture out into the night, even if it was to use the toilet.
Responding to Mbatha’s claim that the African National Congress-led government was ignoring the plight of hostel dwellers because they were Inkatha Freedom Party-supporting Zulus, Mahlangu said: ”It’s a history thing … because, before the hostels were mostly for people from KZN.
”The situation has changed because there are all kinds of people living here now … All we have to do is change their mindsets.”
Responding to the claim, Tugwana quipped: ”But the mayor is Zulu.”
”I think its deeper than that. People who want to influence them come to sell that type of thing.”
City spokesperson Nthathise Modingoane said the government tried to provide ”as much basic services as possible”.
Communication between residents and government was necessary, he added.
This is accomplished through public meetings with residents.
”But we can’t force people to attend.”
At the Orlando West Women’s Hostel, Collette Nhlumayo (38) stands outside her one bedroom home and vents her frustration over the lack of a geyser and bath in her home.
She is also frustrated by sporadic power cuts although she does her bit for her neighbours by supplying them with electricity through an illegal connection.
Nhlumayo also lamented the increasing attacks on women at a nearby bus stop.
Meanwhile, at the Diepkloof hostel, construction to transform the hostel into double-storey family units has begun.
Modingoane said the first phase of the R10-million project would be completed by the end of August.
For those who cannot afford the rented units, government subsidised houses would be built in nearby areas.
Most of the construction workers building the new homes were hostel residents.
”They need to own the project … we need to leave some skills here so that they can maintain the houses,” said the project manager for Diepkloof, Julia Sibeko.
The second phase starts in March when demolition of the existing hostel will begin.
A council hostel closer to the CBD in Selby is also receiving a R68-million facelift.
”The hostel is situated in a hostile area … around it is a mining area, there are busy streets and you have the market on the other side.
”We need to make sure social and community issues are addressed here, there needs to be integration,” said programme manager, James Maluleke.
The plan was to convert the men’s-only hostel, in existence since the 1930s, into a community in which the men and their families could live.
”It was a concrete jungle, we needed to make it friendly to the community.”
A block in the men’s hostel, not yet revamped, closely resembles the inside of a prison.
The tiny rooms, shared by between five and seven men, line the passage, parallel to the bathrooms.
The passage opens up into a large kitchen with gas stoves on one end and a large grey hall, lined with metal tables and benches on the other.
Another block of the hostel on the other side of the yard is being built into an apartment block, complete with balconies and fully-fitted bathrooms.
”Before, the only duty [for a hostel dweller] was for him to come and work … once you are old, you go back home.
”So now, we want to change it into family units.”
Despite these efforts, a study conducted by TNS Research Surveys showed a high level of dissatisfaction with municipal delivery and identified ”flashpoints” where protests were possible.
The survey revealed that about a third of black and coloured residents in Gauteng metro areas were dissatisfied with service delivery.
However, Masondo, after violent protests erupted at hostels in Jabulani, Nancefield, Dube, Dobsonville, Mzimhlope, Jeppe, Denver-George Goch and Alexandra earlier this month, said there was ”absolutely no justification” for the acts of vandalism, criminality and savagery at protests about ”alleged poor service delivery”.
But residents, like Mbatha, who said she was tired of living in squalor, saw the call to protest as a means by which to change her living conditions. – Sapa