Hanover Park Community angry over substandard houses

by Mishkah Anthony
14 August 2008

The Newfields Village community in Hanover Park is angry that their children have been placed at risk by the Cape Town Community Housing Company.

The housing company is currently working in the area, having been forced to spend millions of rand on repairing all the faults it created by using substandard material to build the houses some years ago.

However, residents say the company is not removing the rubble after they finish working. Window frames and broken glass is strewn all over the community and this is extremely hazardous.

"The Cape Town Community Housing Company is again taking us, the community, as scrap" said the Anti Eviction Campaign's Gary Hartzenberg.

The community says it is also at risk from the cheap window latches that the Company is installing. The latches are made of plastic, not metal and in three houses; thieves have already broken in simply by breaking off the latches.

Gary Hartzenberg said the Anti-Eviction Campaign met with CTCHC Project Manager Mdumiso Jikela and asked him to remove the rubble in a meeting this morning, he said that if children cut their feet open, it is not his problem.

The Anti- Eviction Campaign says the Cape Town Community Housing Company has not learnt its lesson; it used substandard material to build houses for the poor and was then forced, after a long struggle by the community, to repair all the houses. But now it is doing the same thing all over again.