Forced removal victims from Simon's Town feel like a forgotten community

The apartheid force removals caused a lot unhappiness to most of the Cape Town informal settlers. Many people who lived close to the then “white only areas” were forced to leave their homes and were placed in informal areas to accommodate white people. There has been an ongoing process to compensate the people who were affected. The victims from the Simon Town forced removals are feeling neglected or ignored by the Western Cape government as the ongoing restitution program is not focusing on them. The residence of the areas in the Simon's Town vicinity such as Ocean View are feeling ignored on their land claims.

Residence from Dido Valley are feeling the most ignored as they feel like the government has completely forgotten about. The communities’ complaints are that they are completely out of the conversation regarding land claims. Suzette Farmer chairperson of the committee said “the redevelopment of Dido Valley and Luyolo is a bitter sweet one as they were one the first communities to be evicted in 1965”. Since the process of restitution began, community members from the areas of Ocean View, Dido Valley, Luyolo, Seaforth and Red-hill want to know why they are not part of the restitution conversation.

Cecilia Thiem from Human Settlement said “when housing projects commence they do not target specific areas or try to find beneficiaries and that all housing project must utilize the housing wait list (Database)”.

By: Chuma Matiwane