City of Cape Town housing project has backyarders up in arms

Rachel Moraki has lived in a backyard dwelling in Ravensmead, Cape Town, for 31 years. She raised her children here and now her grandchildren too.

The 59-year-old grandmother, who says she applied for a house 26 years ago, says her family is stuck in a cycle of hardship due to the housing crisis.

She currently lives in her aunt’s backyard with her daughter, her son-in-law, and two children, aged six and nine.

Her son-in-law works for a food retailer and her daughter is unemployed. The two children receive child support grants. “It hurts to know that after living in Ravensmead [all my life], I am still struggling,” she said.

Moraki is one of 3,000 people on the Ravensmead housing application list.

According to the Census in 2022, about 12% of households in the Ravensmead precinct were living in informal dwellings. At the time, the population was just under 65,000.

Now a new housing development has the backyarders up in arms. Many of the backyarders who have been waiting decades for a house, say the City of Cape Town’s Elsies River Infill housing project does not meet the growing need for housing opportunities in Ravensmead.

The project is expected to deliver 724 Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing opportunities across six sites in the area. But only 44 of these units will be built in Florida, Ravensmead, as part of phase 1.

These homes are expected to be completed by June.

A further 680 units will be built in November 2026 in phase 2, in areas including Eureka, Connaught and Adriaanse.

The city says the project is based on a “detailed planning process”.

Mayoral committee member for Human Settlements Carl Pophaim told GroundUp that beneficiaries had been selected using the Housing Allocation Policy, the Housing Needs Register and the National Housing Subsidy framework.

Of the units being built in phase 1, Pophaim said that 11 units will be allocated to beneficiaries from each of the four wards in the Elsies River target area. He said only part of Ravensmead falls within this phase, while the rest of the applicants from the area will be considered later in the project.

But several residents we spoke to say they have been on the housing waiting list for between 15 and nearly 30 years and live in overcrowded and dilapidated backyard structures. They fear that people from outside the community are being prioritised in a development being built on their doorstep.

Aneen Pieterse, 49, has been on the list for 23 years and has lived in Ravensmead her whole life. She is blind in one eye. She lives in a backyard Wendy house with her daughter and pays R1,000 in rent.

She says she regularly checks and her position on the waiting list never changes. “Every time I go to the housing office, I am told that I have to wait … It feels like your requests fall on deaf ears.”

Brenda Heyns and her husband, also backyarders, have been on the housing list for 15 years. They survive on her disability grant and his old age grant. Born and raised in Ravensmead, she said leaving is not an option.

“My children are here, my church is here, my whole life is here,” she said.

But her home floods each winter. “When it rains, the water runs down the yard and into my kitchen. It’s very cold and wet, and there’s a lot of mud everywhere,” she said. The couple both have asthma.

Residents complain that there was a lack of transparency in the housing allocation process.

Ravensmead executive committee chair Jeff Van Wyk said the community felt sidelined. He claimed the public participation ahead of the new housing project was inadequate. He is calling for the project to be reviewed.

In response to the allegations, Pophaim said that a participation process had been completed and that elected representatives serve as the link between the city and communities.

He acknowledged that there are over 3,000 people on the waiting list in Ravensmead. Pophaim said there are currently no new BNG projects planned specifically for Ravensmead applicants.

He said projects in surrounding areas, including Manenberg, Hanover Park, Athlone and Heideveld, are in the pipeline.

This article first appeared in GroundUp and was written by Marecia Damons.