Stuart+Wilsons+reply+to+Chantelle+Benjamin+on+inner+city

From: "Stuart Wilson"  To: benjaminc@bdfm.co.za Sent: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:34:46 +0200 Subject: Your article on Jo'burg inner city


 * Dear Ms. Benjamin**,

I am writing to you about your article "Jo'burg Team Tackles Unsafe City Buildings", which appeared in the Business Day today, 28 June 2005.

While the article is, in most respects, accurate, it tells less than half the story. I recently co-authored a report on municipal eviction practices in the inner city, which drew a number of conclusions which were not explored in your piece. The report - "Any Room for the Poor? Forced Evictions in Johannesburg, South Africa", published by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) - is attached for your reference, and I draw your attention in particular to chapter four. But the key points, in relation to your article, are:

First, your article presents as unproblematic the municipality's process in clearing so-called "bad" buildings in the inner city. It fails to point out that the occupiers of "bad" buildings are invariably desperately poor and are peremptorily evicted without alternative accommodation, despite the fact that the City is under a prima facie constitutional duty to make every reasonable effort to procure these occupiers somewhere better and safer to live. The report also found that several other aspects of the process adopted by the municipality were probably in violation of international law and Section 26 of the South African Constitution.

Second, your article accepts Roopa Singh's two-fold typology of "bad" buildings as having either been "invaded" or "hijacked". The COHRE Report found, on the basis of an investigation of 11 "bad" buildings, that neither of these terms adequately account for how "bad" buildings turn "bad". In particular, while the report concedes that some buildings are slum-lorded in the manner suggested in your report, most "bad" buildings are neither "invaded" nor "hijacked" by their occupiers. Rather, they have been occupied and informally alienated from absentee landlords gradually over long periods - sometimes as much as 14 years - by very poor people who are unable to find adequate housing within a reasonable distance of economic opportunity. These people are, on the whole, domestic workers, petrol pump attendants, cleaners, sweatshop workers, security guards and informal traders all earning less than around R1500 a month - which basically precludes then from formal housing opportunities.

Third, your article did not explore what happens to occupiers of "bad" buildings after they are evicted. The COHRE Report found that they invariably move into slum conditions elsewhere in the inner city. The report found further that the municipality's programme of "building closures" is therefore self-defeating, in that it tackles the unsightly consequences of slum dwelling, but not its root cause. Indeed, some buildings the City clears are simply re-occupied a short while after, by squatters with nowhere else to go. An example of this is Registry House in the CBD, which was cleared twice last year in terms of the process exposed in your article.

Ultimately inner city slum conditions need to be seen as a manifestation, first, of the formal housing market's failure to accommodate low wage and informal workers within a reasonable distance of their jobs, and second, of historically created landlessness in South Africa. To uncritically characterise them as by-law violations which are being "clamped down" on and will be eliminated in due course is not only practically naive, but also fails to take account of the massive needs of the inner city poor, to be able to access cheap, decent accommodation.

I hope that this will help inform your coverage of inner city regeneration in future, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss these issues further.

Best wishes,


 * Stuart**