The Department of Human Settlements says it’s working on a plan to find alternative temporary accommodation for flood victims who are still housed in community halls in KwaZulu-Natal. That’s according to Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi. She was speaking on the sidelines of the Human Settlements Indaba in Durban on Monday. The two-day Indaba started on Sunday.
Nonhlanhla Mavundla has been homeless since her house was washed away during the deadly floods. She currently stays in this community hall with her children.
Flood victims call for more collaboration to fasttrack houses:
An estimated 3 909 households are being accommodated in different government centres in and around eThekwini. Victims still living in these centres say they are beginning to lose any hope of receiving help from the government.
“We have been waiting for temporary houses for a long time now and nothing is coming from side of government. Some even tell us that finding suitable land to build houses is a problem. We are getting promises but nothing is happening,” says Mavundla.
“We are just left like this with no help coming our way. I doubt that anything will happen now because we’ve been staying here for a long time,” says another flood victim Nosipho Silangwe.
Government has conceded that delivery of temporary residential units has been slow. Around 1 076 units have so far been delivered across the province while 980 have been occupied.
Role players in the Human Settlements Department from across the country converged to look at possible solutions to the country’s housing challenges.
A call was made for improved partnerships between government and the private sector to improve the delivery of decent houses.
“We can’t continue to have people in the halls knowing that it’s going to take longer to build because of the challenges that we have experienced. Part of the alternatives is to find buildings either, we can get them to rent utilising the money we would have provided temporary for them to be able to rent somewhere, then we build permanent cities. Those are some of the things we are [having a] Cabinet Lekgotla this week to be able to share our report so that we can get authorisation to go that route. We have approached National Treasury to request that authorisation,” says Kubayi.
Government has also cautioned flood victims to refrain from rebuilding their houses in flood-prone areas.
