"No Room For The Poor " - Broadcast Script

FENLEY: Living in derelict buildings has become a way of live for many poor families in Johannesburg’s inner city. A recent high court ruling has put a stop to their eviction but the fight for somewhere to live for thousands of residents is far from over.

UPS: - VOICER –Determined to transform Jozi into a world class city by 2030 Johannesburg embarked on series of forced removals of poor people from inner-city buildings. The red ants became a familiar sight.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - Our evictions orders are not to put people on the street our eviction orders are there which the sheriffs of the court execute because the building is not habitable.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - These evictions are not about health and safety at all it actually about telling poor people in a not so subtle way that the city has no place for them  in the inner city.

PRE-TITLE: NO ROOM FOR THE POOR?

UPS: - VOICER –Multi-storey San Jose is close to Hillbrow. It’s become a symbol of the fight between the city and its poor. On the one hand the city determined to clean up its bad building. On the other residents clinging to the roofs over their heads.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - No the city doesn’t want us here. They don’t want us here. They only want us when they want us to vote for them they say we are too dirty we are to poor. We must go to shacks in Soweto. This is South Africa we belong here. Where must we go.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - The buildings that we closely define as bad buildings are the ones that pose a health risk and its also a safety risk for people that actually live in them.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - In the shacks there is fire there is water same as here. That place is dirtier than here. And we are making our living in town here.

UPS: - VOICER –For the past two years, San Jose has been on the list of buildings the city wants to upgrade. But the stumbling block has been the more than three hundred residents living here. Nelson Khathane is one of the leaders of the San Jose community. He was willing to show us.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE COMMITTEE MEMBER - We are patrolling here from eleven to half past three sometimes four, we chase people that are sleeping in the garage here, we beat them. There is no customers at home, no work, here you go and sell in the station customers come at least you make twenty or thirty rand a day here you make your own living by selling.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; WITS LAW SCHOOL CENTRE FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - San Jose is a sectional title building so you didn’t have one owner there you had ninety odd different owners as the original tenants started to sub-let because of the demand for accommodation in the inner city the more hands the money had to pass through the more likely or the less likely it was to get to the people who supply the water and electricity and employ the security guards and then clean up the building. The building went into decline there was not central management and the water and electricity was finally terminated somewhere around 2003.

UPS: - VOICER –The residents themselves have since cleaned up their building under the supervision of Nelson and his committee.

 UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - Look this is the original key of this flat that the owner gave me. This is where I am staying now.

UPS: - VOICER –Nelson introduced us to Khombisile Khumalo. She lives on the third floor with her husband and three children.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - There is no water we go begging down there where we used to get water, the municipality closed there so they close the tap.

UPS: - VOICER –Her husband Mboweni Tshabalala is a street vendor in town. To supplement their meagre income she and her sister make cushions. They all come from rural KZN.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - Khombisile and her husband are staying here they have been chased downtown by the municipality, they closed down the building from there they came looking for a place to stay so they talked to us. And we said here is a place it is empty you can stay in that flat. Everybody that come her has to come through us first. We just don’t put every Jack and Jill we check the person first.

UPS: - VOICER -Do they pay money?

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - No they don’t pay. The only money we collect from them is for cleaning, plastics and brooms. We collect two rand each house.

UPS: - VOICER –Around the corner from San Jose are these four abandoned houses. One hundred and thirty people live here and the city plans to evict them. Shacks have been built on the properties. We met up with WITS Researcher Stuart Wilson, and Shereza Sibanda from inner city resource centre. They’re helping residents fight ongoing efforts to remove them.

UPS: - ANGELINA LEGARI; JOEL STREEL RESIDENT - I can see this is not the right place to stay…but it is because of the situation. We are suffering we are not working. Haven’t got a place to stay that’s why I am staying here.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - And people who live in the inner city generally have access to livelihood in the inner city they pump petrol they clean and guard buildings, they recycle commercial waste, they are hawkers on the streets so on the one hand you have people that are essential to the inner city economy.. but on they other hand because you fail to provide for them here, you tell them you can’t live here so you have to spend a huge amount of money on transport getting in and out of the inner city every day.

UPS: - VOICER –Last month the city of Johannesburg applied for evictions orders for these and other properties but a ruling by high court Judge Jajbhay put a halt to all evictions. The judge ruled that before the city can evict it must provide adequate housing for those unable to support themselves and their dependants.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - The prime constitutional argument is that it is not constitutionally permissible if you’re the state to seek the eviction of large number of poor people where you do not have a rational plan to re-accommodate them.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - We won the case against the municipality now I understand they appealed against the judgment so now we don’t know what is going to happen again…we are living in fear of being evicted.

AD BREAK 1

UPS: - VOICER –Massyn Court in the heart of Johannesburg. It’s one of the worst building in the city. A resident named David shows us around. We’re greeted by the stench of human waste and rotting garbage. Some of the walls in this high rise building are missing. This makes it dangerous to use the stairs especially at night.

UPS: - DENNIS LEVE ; MASSYN COURT RESIDENT - I’m not working, got wife and children back home I don’t like to stay here but I don’t have money to pay rent…I say I don’t have money to pay rent. I’m not working.

UPS: - ALVIN SAMPSON; MASSYN COURT RESIDENT - I am just looking for money to eat only the rest I know I lie down here. I come pick up books and nicely arrange them and then sleep.

UPS: - VOICER –Last month a fire broke out here. Packed with illegal immigrants, twelve people died.  Survivors were temporary shelter at the metro evangelical Service Building.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - as we approach winter we know there are going to be more fires lit in these office blocks that are converted into illegal housing, so people are actually taking their lives into their own hands.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - There are fire risks there are health risks, but the question is how do you address that, do you address that by throwing people out on the streets with nowhere else to go or do you address it by providing people who have to live in those buildings because there is nothing else, they cant afford anything better, with alternative accommodation which is decent, safe and habitable.

UPS: - VOICER -JEANWELL on Nugget Street is another abandoned building. People are living here with no water or electricity

UPS: - JAMES MAILA; JEANWELL HOUSE RESIDENT – In this building we’ve been staying for a long time we’ve been paying rent before.

 UPS: - VOICER – James Maila is one of the committee members in the building.

 UPS: - JAMES MAILA; JEANWELL HOUSE RESIDENT – Because the owner doesn’t pay rent. Water cut off, electricity cut off. We keep order we close the gate about ten o’clock during the night, till we open it half past five

UPS: - CONSTANCE; JEANWELL HOUSE RESIDENT - Its raining, no water, its dark.

UPS: - SHEREZA SIBANDA; INNER CITY RESOURCE CENTRE - they tried their level best like go to the council ask if the water can be opened so that they can pay the rent since the owner was no longer there to help them with no success at all. To they decided it’s better for us to stay in here that to stay in the street where they are exposed as women to rape, exposed to the cold weather outside. The people who are staying in these buildings have paying rentals paying for services to the owners and to the managing agents, but those people were not honouring the payments to the service providers and they have not maintained the properties, when they felt that their pockets were full then they decided to run away and leave the tenants in the buildings.  The tenants with lack of knowledge of how to manage the building they just sit like that and say oh the guy is gone, and wherever there is a cut off to go to the city council and say call you help us we need water we are prepared to pay. They are always told to go and look for the owners of the buildings.

UPS: - VOICER –The city is also targeting so-called hijacked building leaving paying tenants extremely vulnerable. We met Hendrik de Klerk who works who works with the authorities to take back buildings like this one. He explains the strategy used by hijackers.

UPS: - HENDRIK DE KLERK; BAD BOYZ SECURITY - they kick the security out and replace it with their own aggressive guards and that’s how they take control of the buildings. Our general manager was killed with his bodyguard here in Hillbrow it’s a dangerous game

UPS: - VOICER -But it is also a lucrative business.

UPS: - HENDRIK DE KLERK; BAD BOYZ SECURITY - A lot of money, you take a building with hundred units they collect a thousand rand from each unit, it’s a R100 000 tax free per month a year R1.2 million. 

UPS: - VOICER -Nilesh Bhana is the owner of another hijacked building on Eloff Street.

UPS: - NILESH BHANA; PROPERTY OWNER -I purchased the building in the late 2003 with the intention of extending our business on ground level we got five legal tenants, and on the second and third level we got 48 illegal tenants. I have heard that they have a committee formed and they are collecting money but nothing is being paid forward to me. We given them notice with sufficient time to find alternative accommodation to move out. So far with lawyers fees its in access of hundred thousand rands and we still looking like we not succeeding

AD BREAK 2

UPS: - VOICER –Metro Evangelical Services is a community-based Christian organisation. It provides care fro the inner city poor.

UPS: - JOHAN ROBYN; METRO EVANGELICAL SERVICES -HOMELESS CARE -We are mainly dealing with homeless community assisting to there basic needs from a day to day basis includes feeding, clothing, accommodation,  just basically their immediate needs.

UPS: - VOICER –Most of these people have been victims of evictions.

UPS: - THEMBILE TIGER; HOMELESS - We were evicted into the street, always we get evicted, to the street to the street without a place to stay.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - one would find that many of these people, the moment they are evicted, they are so innovative that they find other accommodation.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - You are simply moving the problem around in the inner city you chase people from one bad building to another practically that does nothing to eliminate slum living in the inner city.

UPS: - VOICER –Europa hotel was once a child-prostitution den. Today it’s a model housing project for low income groups.

UPS: - PIETER BOSCH; METRO EVANGELICAL SERVICES - Our vision is to change the heart of the city. We really want to see in what way in a holistic manner from giving food and providing housing at Madulamoho, to see in what way we can really uplift the person, to take him out of the street and put him back into society where he can at least earn some income and where he can have his own flat or house maybe.

UPS: - RENIER HISTORY OF EUROPA HOUSE -In 2004 Madulamoho got the tender from the city of Johannesburg to manage this place. Transitional housing is for short-term stay…people can only stay for twelve months, they share a room, they pay per bed, and they pay one hundred and fifty per month. Communal housing is a little bit up from transitional housing. This is a typical communal room, this is where people have got shared facilities like kitchens and shared bathrooms with other tenants. Here they are paying six hundred and fifty per month, plus utilities which comes to about two hundred so it’s about eight hundred a month average, and usually people share a room like that

I think one of the biggest problems the social housing institutions face is to keep our rentals as low as possible this utility rates. And we’ve got huge fights with utility provider such as Johannesburg water this building the Europa Hotel was previously a hotel so we are still getting charged at commercial rates.

UPS: - VOICER –Europa house is an example of what can be done. However most of the city’s social housing projects cater for higher income groups.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - What we are trying to do is to provide housing through agencies, through companies and through section twenty one companies, to provide housing for a cross section income earners. We’ve got the Oberg housing company. with their brickfields project. And they have a number of buildings in the inner city.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - The Brickfields dev. is a social housing development and only viable for people who earn. most people in those develop will have to earn upward of three and half thousand rand a month what the city should be doing is developing accommodation for people earning a thousand rand a month, five hundred rand a month, the average income for people on these properties is four hundred a month, now they will say this is not financially viable but that is exactly what the state is supposed to do. It is suppose to step in where the market fails. It is there to guarantee basic constitutional rights for people that can’t afford them.

UPS: - VOICER – San Jose is also part of the city’s housing plans. The recent court judgment has for now put these plans on hold.

UPS: - NELSON TALKING ABOUT PROPERTY COMPANIES - The owner of that building is the same as that one, their interest is here they want this building you have to have two thousand deposit plus three hundred levy and rent for 1thousand rand five a month so we here we cannot afford this kind of money .that is a huge amount of money. They want to renovate and charge rent we just beggars we must go sleep in the street.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG -  One must look at the positive side, every time an eviction takes place there is a plan behind that building. That building is improved and that building will provide suitable accommodation afterwards and the more building we improve the more availability there is in the housing market, so unfortunately we are going to have to go through this phase.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - There is nothing in principle wrong with that, it is the extent to which that process excludes people that earn less than about three and a half thousand a month, of which there is an awful lot.

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - We don’t want to stay free. What we are saying. Why they don’t provide us with tangible places for us poor to stay. We met them half way they met us half way

UPS: - VOICER –Every Sunday morning San Jose residents are to be found cleaning in and around their building. They say they’re still waiting for the city to deal with their sewerage problem. 

UPS: - NELSON KHATHANE; SAN JOSE RESIDENT - This is the upper garage where the judge came in and he pointed out to the municipality that they must come and fix the pipes here.

UPS: - YAKOOB MAKDA; REGIONAL DIRECTOR CITY OF JOBURG - We had undertaken to provide certain services free of charge we intend sticking to that, we are looking at the resources required because it is an ongoing problem in many of the buildings. Pumping sewerage from a bldg today and it gets flooded in a weeks time is not the solution, we need to find a long term solution .What we are trying to do is to improve the social conditions under which people live. If one cannot economically develop the inner city, create the jobs, those people are going to remain poor.

UPS: - STUART WILSON; RESEARCHER WITS LAW SCHOOL FOR APPLIED LEGAL STUDIES - Again if you look at how the city respond to unhealthy and unsafe shack settlements outside the city, it doesn’t go and evict people from the shacks, there are 209 000 shacks in the Johannesburg municipality jurisdiction it is not about health, it is not about safety, it is about a capitalist model of regeneration which has no room for the poor

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