Political avtivist Chumani Maxwele, has issued a stern warning to Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, that the South African youth would not allow her department’s age criteria to sideline it from qualifying for free public housing.
Maxwele is best known for his involvement in the Rhodes Must Fall and the #FeesMustFall university students’ campaigns.
Two years ago, Sisulu said that anyone younger than 40 would not get a free house from the government because apartheid “had not stolen” from South Africans under that age.
“Anybody below the age of 40 will need to understand that they are not our priority unless they are special needs or are heads of child-headed households,” Sisulu was quoted as saying at the 6th Planning Africa Conference in October 2014.
“Our intention in giving free houses was to right the wrongs of the past and make sure that we can give our people dignity. And that group of people is not the people below the age of 40.”
But on Wednesday – two years after those remarks were made – Maxwele criticised Sisulu’s stance, saying that the youth would resist their exclusion from RDP housing benefit. If they were excluded they would make the policy “fall”, said Maxwele.
“We have assembled a team of young professionals and activists to argue against the adoption of this policy. It cannot be right that young people are excluded from benefiting from government services when they are rightful citizens of this country and some are paying taxes,” Maxwele said.
Maxwele, a University of Cape Town student, was speaking on the sidelines of the opening of the three-day annual Human Settlement Conference on Wednesday.
Hosted in partnership with Nelson Mandela Metro University, this year’s conference theme is “Sustainable future cities and human settlements begin today”.
For its part, the department is restructuring its policy on hostels in which it would gradually abolish them by way of qualifying dwellers to receive a “Breaking New Ground” house or the “Community Residential Units” subsidy.
Upgraded hostels, Sisulu said in her 2015/16 Budget Vote last year, would form part of social housing units, giving preference to under 40s who do not earn enough to buy a house.
Speaking at the welcome dinner on Wednesday, Sisulu said taking over the ministry of building houses for the poor in 2014 had been a huge responsibility, but that she had come to absorb the pressure that came with it.
“I have realised that there is something in human settlements that is a rare opportunity in life where you are able to create something that is of such lasting value to somebody else,” Sisulu said.
The department had earlier showcased its flagship Zanemvula Mega Project, an informal settlement upgrading and human settlement project in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro earmarked to build 20,000 housing units over a period of 15 years.
To date, just more than 8,000 housing units have been built by the project. They include 30 two-bedroom and fully-fitted houses and hundreds of 40-square-metre houses. As many as 491 units are earmarked for military veterans.
A social housing project in Walmer, funded by national government and supported by other tiers of government, provides subsidised and rental housing for low and middle-income earners with incomes of between R1,500 and R15,000 per month
The human settlement conference officially kicks off on Thursday and is attended by government officials, civil society representatives, and foreign dignitaries.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
