It took Lauren Smith five minutes to cast her vote at the Christiaan De Wet Primary School voting station in Sophiatown on Wednesday. Getting there was another matter.
She had walked up to 3km from her home in Westbury after realising she had not updated her voting address when she moved back to the neighbourhood.
But for the 42-year-old single mother, the walk was worth it. She was voting with her 13-year-old son’s future firmly in mind.
Westbury’s problems, she said, were impossible to ignore: recurring water outages, gangsterism and the fear that has become part of everyday life for families in the community.
“The main problem is gangsterism,” Smith said. “It’s not safe for us and for our kids. We don’t know what is happening in terms of police investigating cases and stuff. There’s no action, there’s nothing.”
There were periods of relative calm, for which residents were grateful. But when the violence flared up again, families went into what she called “survival mode”.
“We lock ourselves in. We give ourselves martial law, if I can put it like that. We give ourselves curfews. After 6pm, no one goes out. If you need anything from the shops or anything like that, you’ll leave it for tomorrow or another time.”
As a single parent raising a teenage boy, she found it particularly difficult.
“These kids become desensitised to what’s happening. For them it’s the norm, every day hearing gunshots going off, seeing videos circulating on social media about people being shot and killed, blood running in the streets.
“It becomes a topic of discussion. They forget about schooling; they’re more interested in what is happening with these gangsters. So it’s very difficult to sway him from that type of lifestyle and looking into those topics and stuff. It’s very, very difficult. But we’re trying.”
Smith grew up in Westbury during an earlier period of gang violence. She never thought she would experience it again, but believes the situation has become worse.
“This time it’s so much worse because there’s access to weapons that we did not know where they came from. That’s the question that we’re asking as a community, but we’re not getting answers from the law, from the authority figures.
“No one has even an inkling or giving a direction into which way they are going to investigate. That is what’s causing so much frustration as well.”
The water supply is another persistent frustration. At least four or five times a month, she said, residents would turn on their taps only to find nothing coming out, often without any warning.
“You want to prepare for the evening and when you open the tap, there’s no water coming out. There’s no notice, there’s nothing. Now you scramble and you try to go on social media or get in contact with the community groups to try and find out how long the problem is going to be for.”
Smith believes Westbury has been forgotten, despite the many residents working hard to improve their community.
“It’s like they’re trying to erase us from society and there’s so many good, hardworking people that I know are trying to make a difference for their community.”
She voted for the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) on Wednesday. Smith said she was drawn to the ACDP by what she described as its community work in Westbury, including free skills courses and efforts to help residents find employment.
“If you’re on the ground and you actually see what they’re doing for the community, it’s an amazing thing,” she said.
“Where you would think, like in a household where there is no income, perhaps people are relying on the social grants, now at least there are one or two people within the household who are able to get a salary, earn a wage and be able to do more for their family, their kids and themselves. It’s uplifting and it’s motivating in that way.”
Her support for the party came after a change of heart. She had previously voted for the Patriotic Alliance, but said she had become disillusioned with its leader, Gayton McKenzie, over his public statements and involvement in the search for missing six-year-old Joshlin Smith.
“He lied about Joshlin. He lied about knowing where to find Joshlin and how to recover her. She's a kid. He doesn't deserve my vote,” she said.
“I’ve worked hard to provide for my family. I can’t come and accept another man’s lies. I’m always thinking as a parent for a child, what would I do in that situation?”
McKenzie became publicly involved in the search for Joshlin, making claims about the police investigation and his own efforts to find her. His statements came under scrutiny during the 2025 trial, when the investigating officer disputed claims that police had abandoned the investigation. Joshlin remains missing.
This time, she had researched the political parties and looked more closely at what they were doing in her community.
But it was her son, who has just started Grade 8, who remained uppermost in her mind.
“I want my kid to get a good education and I want him to feel safe while getting the education. Those are the two main things, from a parent’s point of view.”
She has already started planning for his future. Next year, she wants to take him to university open days around Gauteng, to show him the opportunities available to him.
“I said to him, ‘you are 13, you’ve started Grade 8, you’re on your new journey.’ Part of my plan for next year, I want to find out when the universities have their open days for registration. I would just like to go.
“I told him, ‘you have access to some of the biggest universities around Gauteng. It’s within walking distance for you, boy. I don’t see a reason why you can’t walk through the doors of those types of institutions and make something better for yourself.’ It’s part of the plan for next year. It’s on the vision board.”
Smith, who was retrenched from her hospitality job in 2023 and only recently found work as a domestic worker in Bergbron, knows how difficult it can be to find opportunities. She said she had seen people in her community go for more than a decade without work, while some families struggled to put food on the table.
Through her work with local feeding schemes, she had also seen children who sometimes ate only once a day.
“When days like this come on the weekends and in the holidays, and the feeding schemes don’t operate during those times, you ask yourself what happens to those kids. Where are they finding something to eat?”
Her voice broke as she spoke about the people she had seen struggling and the hope that community initiatives could offer.
“I’ve seen good people, church-going people who try every day to do the right thing, not being able to find work for more than 10 years, begging on people’s doors for a loaf of bread so they can feed their kids. It’s heartbreaking when you hear their stories.”
She hopes her vote will help bring more opportunities to Westbury and that by the time her son matriculates, the neighbourhood will be a safer place in which to grow up.
“I’m hoping and praying that with this party, at least for the next five or six years, by the time my son matriculates, that there could be better opportunities and that he will be safe and not be influenced into thinking that it’s the normal thing to do.”