{"id":165909,"date":"2020-09-16T08:39:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T06:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/students-say-renting-private-accommodation-expensive-and-unsafe-pe\/"},"modified":"2020-09-16T08:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T06:39:20","slug":"students-say-private-accommodation-is-expensive-and-unsafe-in-pe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/students-say-private-accommodation-is-expensive-and-unsafe-in-pe\/","title":{"rendered":"Students say private accommodation is expensive and unsafe in PE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Joseph%20Chirume\/studentspe-jc-20200915.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of a protest march\" data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"972132757\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/students-say-private-accommodation-is-expensive-and-unsafe-in-pe.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">About 100 students from TVET colleges and Nelson Mandela University marched on Tuesday to the Port Elizabeth City Hall to hand over a memorandum of demands to Mayor Thsonono Buyeye. Photo: Joseph Chirume.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>100 students from Nelson Mandela University and colleges in Port Elizabeth marched to hand a memorandum to the mayor.<\/li>\n<li>They want the City to convert derelict buildings into student accommodation.<\/li>\n<li>They say their private accommodation is expensive and unsafe.<\/li>\n<li>The acting mayor appears to support their demands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>About 100 students from TVET colleges and Nelson Mandela University marched on Tuesday from Russel campus to the Port Elizabeth City Hall to hand over a memorandum to Acting Mayor Thsonono Buyeye. The students are demanding that the municipality fulfil a previous commitment to convert derelict buildings in the metro into student accommodation at low rentals.<\/p>\n<p>Students complain that they pay \u201cexorbitant rentals\u201d for unsafe, run-down accommodation.<\/p>\n<p>COSAS provincial deputy chairperson Sikho Njana said, \u201cThere are many students who are sleeping in the corridors of libraries and college halls.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have several buildings in the metro that are derelict and have been empty for many years. Most of these buildings have been turned into drug and prostitution dens. They are a security threat to residents. We want the municipality to invoke its by-laws on abandoned buildings and convert them into student accommodation. We want the municipality to provide security to these buildings,\u201d said Njana.<\/p>\n<p>Njana said the municipality must also improve street lighting in Central and Summerstrand areas where many students live.<\/p>\n<p>Qhayiya Gwiji, who is studying electrical engineering at Qhayiya college, said she pays R800 a month for private accommodation in Kwazakele. \u201cAs female students, we are not safe. I would prefer a place with a security guard and security features but they are very expensive \u2026 The landlord demands his money at the end of every month even if the National Students Financial Aid Scheme did not pay us,\u201d said Gwiji.<\/p>\n<p>Simahle Present, also studying electrical engineering, said she pays R750 per month in Zwide and spends nearly the same amount on transport. \u201cWe also don\u2019t have access to free WiFi. The moment we leave the college, our safety concerns begin,\u201d said Present.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Buyeye told the students the City respected the issues in the memo and had been engaging with these. \u201cPort Elizabeth is \u2026 like a ghost city and for us it\u2019s a concern. There is no active nightlife and students are not active. The economy of the city goes to sleep \u2026 Dilapidated buildings that are an eyesore to investors is a concern for us. We will sit with the leadership and come back to you in two weeks time.\u201d<\/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\/students-say-private-accommodation-is-expensive-and-unsafe-in-pe.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 100 students from TVET colleges and Nelson Mandela University marched on Tuesday to the Port Elizabeth City Hall to hand over a memorandum of demands to Mayor Thsonono Buyeye. Photo: Joseph Chirume. 100 students from Nelson Mandela University and colleges in Port Elizabeth marched to hand a memorandum to the mayor. They want the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165910,"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-165909","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\/students-say-private-accommodation-is-expensive-and-unsafe-in-pe.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165909","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=165909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}