COSATU tries to break racial barriers with holiday houses

By Marthe van der Wolf
20 October 2007

This weekend, the Congress of South African Trade Unions will hold a conference about a concept of housing holiday houses in the outlying areas to temporarily accommodate people from the informal sector in sections of their holiday houses.

"The holiday houses can be rented out in the form of tourist business and the residing family could have a person having some form of employment when the venue is rented out," says COSATU spokesperson Tony Ehrenreich. COSATU sees this as form of social tourism that provides a benefit for poor communities.

Ehrenreich says he has taken a family into his small holiday house as a manner in which to provide them with access to decent housing and basic facilities.

"It is unfair when one person has two homes and lives in luxury while the other has nothing," says Ehrenreich.