{"id":164107,"date":"2020-09-01T07:50:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T05:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/families-face-eviction-one-brakpans-iconic-buildings\/"},"modified":"2020-09-01T07:50:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T05:50:28","slug":"families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"Families face eviction from one of Gauteng\u2019s iconic buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Kimberly%20Mutandiro\/lettie_ngoasheng.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of a woman\" data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"2141780312\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Lettie Ngoasheng is struggling to buy food let alone make the R1,500 a month rental for her \u201cbachelor\u201d apartment. Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>About 20 families face eviction from a neglected 1938 block of flats on Voortrekker Road, Brakpan.<\/li>\n<li>Some of the people have been rendered unemployed because of Covid-19.<\/li>\n<li>The owner says he has not had any income and he has to sell the building.<\/li>\n<li>The matter is going to court in September.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t believe that l am losing my home again,\u201d says 60-year-old Lettie Ngoasheng. Together with her daughter and five grandchildren she is one of about 20 families facing eviction from a block of flats, which used be the Central Buildings in the 1930s, on Voortrekker Road, Brakpan.<\/p>\n<p>The electricity has been cut off. People are using illegal connections.<\/p>\n<p>Ngoasheng has been here for two years. She is struggling to buy food let alone make the R1,500 a month rental for her \u201cbachelor\u201d apartment. Her family shares a toilet in the passage.<\/p>\n<p>Ngoasheng says for the past ten years, she has been moving from one building to the next.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo think that l once had a bond on a house in the suburbs in Leachville, when l worked in a firm, some years ago. My children and l were living the dream life. One day, l lost my job and they did not pay me a cent. My world collapsed before my very eyes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Her house was repossessed by the bank. She had never registered for an RDP house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes the government have options to build RDP houses for people like me whose houses were repossessed by the bank?\u201d she asks. \u201cI can\u2019t even start to imagine because so many people on the housing waiting list are struggling to get houses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been insulted by people who have been trying to kick us out \u2026 They even called us hobos \u2026 Sometimes they came at night disturbing our sleep. If we move out, we will go straight onto the street because no one will take tenants who do not have money to pay rent,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo Sias has lived in the block for two and a half years with his family and rents the largest flat, which has two bedrooms. He said when he first moved in there were some offices on the second floor and a night club on the ground floor. Since then there have been about five different people claiming to be caretakers. Rent has been paid to various people over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Sias worked at OR Tambo International Airport, refueling aircraft. He says he has not been paid since lockdown. When he went to check what was happening he was told that his contract had come to an end and he would receive further notice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings are tight. I\u2019ve been living off my savings throughout the lockdown. Soon l\u2019ll have nothing. My wife is suggesting that we sell everything and move back home to Cape Town if the eviction goes through,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Shawn Badenhorst has been living in a one-roomed apartment with his wife and two kids for over a year. They are expecting twins. He recently lost his job due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not like we have not been paying rent for long. It\u2019s only now that times are tough. The other problem is we do not even know who the real owner of the place is. Different faces have come and gone. We do not even know if we were paying to the right people,\u201d says Badenhorst.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s unfair that they are evicting us. We want to welcome our twins into the world while we still have a home. We do not know where else to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Residents received letters on 18 August telling them to leave by 20 September.<\/p>\n<p>Building owner Hennie Martin says he leased the building to someone who has never paid him a cent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have given the occupants one-month notice because they are living there illegally; no rent is being paid. The building has become a liability to me because [of] the water bill \u2026 Some people have stripped the building of everything including electric cables. Certain individuals have also tried to hijack the building claiming it as their own \u2026 There have been many problems and the only option l am left with is to sell the building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said he was going to court in September. Opposing him is Bongani Mdu, who lives in the area, and has become involved on the tenants behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Mdu told GroundUp he has not hijacked the building; he has been fighting for the tenants because various people have been harassing them and trying to evict them unlawfully. He had challenged them to produce the necessary paperwork for a legal eviction.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Kimberly%20Mutandiro\/central_building.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"3648742134\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The Central Buildings in Brakpan was built in the 1930s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lettie Ngoasheng is struggling to buy food let alone make the R1,500 a month rental for her \u201cbachelor\u201d apartment. Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro About 20 families face eviction from a neglected 1938 block of flats on Voortrekker Road, Brakpan. Some of the people have been rendered unemployed because of Covid-19. The owner says he has not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-164107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/families-face-eviction-from-one-of-gautengs-iconic-buildings.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}