Instead of ‘providing’ houses, should the government not rather empower people to build their own?

CapeTalk’s Lester Kiewit speaks with Edgar Pieterse, Founding Director of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town.

Listen below:

South Africa reportedly has a housing backlog of 2 million homes and more than 4000 informal settlements.

The Minister for Human Settlements, Thembi Simelane, says the government has a plan to build around 300,000 houses, but admits there are no resources to eradicate the backlog.

Pieterse believes the current housing model cannot solve the problem we face, as our economy is not growing fast enough.

“You cannot think of the housing question outside of the larger economic question and the growth question and the jobs question.”

- Edgar Pieterse, African Centre for Cities - University of Cape Town

He adds that we may need to move beyond the mindset of needing to provide brick and mortar houses and consider empowering people to build dignified houses on their own.

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This would require upgrading informal settlements and ensuring they have access to basic services, and working with those living there.

“We've got to fundamentally rethink the financing framework and what is considered a human settlement investment.”

- Edgar Pieterse, African Centre for Cities - University of Cape Town

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