{"id":238768,"date":"2022-09-30T23:58:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T21:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures\/"},"modified":"2022-09-30T23:58:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T21:58:01","slug":"maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"Maitland residents refuse to be \u201csqueezed\u201d into temporary structures"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/marecia_damons\/maitland_tra_2.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Residents of Maitland Royal Road informal settlement have expressed concern about the temporary housing units being built so close together. They say there is also uncertainty about which families will receive units and which will not. Photos: Marecia Damons<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The City of Cape Town says a new community centre will be built in Maitland to provide health services.<\/li>\n<li>But part of the land needed for this is occupied by an informal settlement of 24 households.<\/li>\n<li>The City has offered 18 temporary units to reconfigure the area and make space for the new centre.<\/li>\n<li>But not all residents are willing to accept the proposal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Residents of the Maitland Royal Road informal settlement in Cape Town have mixed feelings about temporary housing structures being built for them by the City.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey want to squeeze us into a three-by-six-metre structure,\u201d said Jesica Fortuin, who shares her home with ten other family members. She is refusing to be moved.<\/p>\n<p>The settlement, located across from Maitland Secondary School, is home to 24 households. According to the City it has to be reconfigured (reblocked) to make space available for a new community day centre to be built.<\/p>\n<p>Mayco Member for Human Settlements Malusi Booi said the land belongs to the province. \u201cThe Western Cape government and City have identified an area on the same site, which will be used as a Temporary Relocation Area in order for the development to proceed,\u201d said Booi.<\/p>\n<p>The City will accommodate 15 families with three extra units to accommodate the larger families.<\/p>\n<p>However, \u201csome residents will remain in their existing structures due to their current location in the established TRA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the City will also provide full flush toilets, water and electricity.<\/p>\n<p>The settlement currently has one outside tap, three portable toilets, and a container for residents to dispose of their waste.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is important to note that this settlement has been in existence for many years. The development of the TRA will enhance the appearance of the settlement and will provide services to the residents of the informal area,\u201d said Booi.<\/p>\n<p>But Fortuin and about eight other households are unhappy with the proposal. She said the new units are too small and too crowded together.<\/p>\n<p>Fortuin has lived in Royal Road for ten years. She said discussions with the City began in 2018 when there were only 17 households.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was told that if I accepted the structure, they would accommodate my sister and her three children. But these places are too small. So, I would have to move into a structure with seven people. That\u2019s impossible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/marecia_damons\/anna_soldaat_and_zaybia.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Anna Soldaat, 54, is refusing to move into the temporary units. She currently shares a home with her daughter, Zaybia. \u201cWhy must we move out of our structures which are suitable for us and move into a place where I must wash in front of my child and where we must share one bed?\u201d Soldaat asked.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Willem De Wet is keen to move. He is unemployed and lives alone in a small, makeshift structure. A new unit would be \u201cso much better\u201d he said, but he is uncertain about how structures will be allocated<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been living here for more than 17 years \u2026 I was so happy when I saw them building structures, but now there are people who have been here for barely a year and they are being promised a place, but I\u2019m not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore-Anthony Moses, who was also at first excited to see the new structures \u201cfinally\u201d being built, said, \u201cThese places are far too small for us. There isn\u2019t even a yard or any place to hang your washing. We cannot live this way, especially those of us who have been here for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moses lives with his wife and four other family members.<\/p>\n<p>Kashiefa Achmat, from the Housing Assembly, criticised the temporary relocation area as unsafe in terms of fires.<\/p>\n<p>Jandr\u00e9 Bakker, spokesperson for Western Cape public works, said the development is still in the planning stages and there is not yet a fixed date for when construction will begin on the community day centre.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/marecia_damons\/theodore-anthony_moses.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Resident Theodore-Anthony Moses, 50, said he was hoping the new units would be more spacious. \u201cThe ventilation there is also poor because the structures are on top of each other. We cannot live like that. What happens if one of these structures catches fire?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 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<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Residents of Maitland Royal Road informal settlement have expressed concern about the temporary housing units being built so close together. They say there is also uncertainty about which families will receive units and which will not. Photos: Marecia Damons The City of Cape Town says a new community centre will be built in Maitland to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238769,"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-238768","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\/2022\/09\/maitland-residents-refuse-to-be-squeezed-into-temporary-structures.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238768","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=238768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}