A stone’s throw from the V&A Waterfront and a short walk from the Sea Point Promenade, the old Helen Bowden Nurses Home is a site of struggle. For seven years, the government-owned building, now known as Ahmed Kathrada House, has been home to an unlawful occupation by activists pushing for subsidised housing in the Cape Town CBD. So too has the nearby Woodstock Hospital, renamed after another struggle hero, Cissie Gool.
The two occupations are a direct response to the Western Cape government selling an empty plot of land — the Tafelberg site — in the wealthy suburb of Sea Point.
The issue goes back to the 2010s, says housing activist Sheila Madikane, after domestic workers, caretakers and carers formed a co-operative, called Rainbow Housing, that advocated state-subsidised affordable housing in the area.
After a school on the Tafelberg site was closed in 2010, provincial government departments were asked for submissions about what to do with the land. Among those that answered was the Western Cape department of human settlements, which had noted the land’s potential for social housing. In the end, the province in 2015 decided to sell the grounds to a private school for R135m.
That move resulted in activists from Reclaim the City — a group that includes members of the now defunct Rainbow Housing co-operative — taking up residence in the nurses’ home and hospital in a protest that sought to make the government accountable, says Reclaim member and Cissie Gool House resident Karen Hendricks.
Housing advocacy group Ndifuna Ukwazi joined Reclaim the City in taking up the cudgels, arguing that the vacant land should be converted into affordable housing. It accused the government of not complying with its duty to “reverse spatial apartheid” and its constitutional obligation to provide access to housing within the CBD on an equitable basis.
In part, the problem is a severe shortage of housing. To put this in context, the most recent “Provincial Economic Review and Outlook” notes that “between 2014 and 2023, the total registered housing demand in the Western Cape increased by 267,117, or 76%, reaching 618,765 in 2023”.
“The whole of Cape Town faces a housing crisis,” Hendricks tells the FM. “It is not only people who are living in these occupations. People cannot live inside a housing waiting list.”
As problematic is the lack of housing near areas of economic opportunity.
As Prof Edgar Pieterse, director of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, tells it, the province is “well beyond a crisis. The living conditions for working-class people in the Western Cape is an emergency, a veritable form of slow violence.”
The “occupy” movement has become a rallying point for those advocating more affordable options for people near their places of work. As Reclaim the City member Madikane tells the FM, a number of people in the occupied buildings have found work as a result of living closer to the city centre.
“There are a lot of people that are working. Many people are even working at the docks. Now they have jobs because they live near places of work and the city. Some of their lives changed,” she says.
Madikane has lived in Sea Point since the 1980s, and now lives in Ahmed Kathrada House. “We live here, we were born here. Why must we go back? They are not taking note of us. It seems like we don’t exist,” she says. “This is our land. Tafelberg belongs to the people because that is government land.”
The living conditions for working class people in the Western Cape is an emergency, a veritable form of slow violence
— Edgar Pieterse
That’s been a matter for the courts, with the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) last month overruling a high court decision in the activists’ favour.
It’s a blow to the activists, who’d welcomed the progressive judgment of the Western Cape High Court, which halted the sale. It had found that a policy for affordable housing in and around central Cape Town, in accordance with existing legislation, would “contribute materially to the breaking down of barriers left behind by apartheid spatial planning”. Instead, judges Patrick Gamble and Monde Samela wrote, “the province’s policies in relation to the reversal of apartheid spatial planning, and the promotion of housing are, to all intents and purposes, nonexistent”.
They added: “While the province acknowledges that it is obliged to address apartheid spatial planning and also to promote affordable housing, its policies generally in relation to the use of land available to it are haphazard and reactive, and ultimately lack rationality.”
Last month, the SCA handed down its judgment in the appeal by the City of Cape Town and the province. In it, judge Nambitha Dambuza wrote that neither the provincial government nor the City of Cape Town had a legal obligation to provide social housing “at a specified location”.
The activists hadn’t given consideration to the provincial government’s social development pipeline, she wrote, including the development of the Woodstock Hospital site and a plan for 20% of the Helen Bowden development to be allocated to social housing. “This factual context cannot be ignored.”
Dambuza added: “It is difficult to imagine a more fair and balanced procedure in terms of which an intended disposal of state land can be conducted ... Interested parties are afforded opportunity to comment on a comprehensive proposal, which includes not only the description of the property intended to be disposed of, but also the identity of the prospective purchaser, the value of the land, its current and intended use, the reasons why the offer has been accepted for further consideration, and the proposed purchase price, among other details.”
Tanveer Jeewa, constitutional property law expert and Stellenbosch University lecturer, tells the FM she understands why the activists would be disappointed but says that, technically, the judgment is sound. And it doesn’t stop the province and the city from making a decision in favour of the activists, it “just says there is no duty for them to do so”.
“It’s a blow because we know a lot of money, resources and time went into this strategic litigation and a very progressive and potentially impactful high court judgment was informed,” she says.
Still, Jeewa believes this is a case the Constitutional Court might want to hear. “It’s almost gone too far not to appeal now. I do think there needs to be a conversation about whether the SCA judgment is conservative. If the SCA is right on its interpretation of the law, it doesn’t mean the Constitutional Court cannot take a different, more progressive approach and come to a different conclusion. The Constitutional Court has a tendency to push the envelope a little bit more.”
Ndifuna Ukwazi is considering appealing the judgment, according to the organisation’s legal head, Disha Govender. “The case has been about interrogating the lack of real commitment and action by the province and city to redress spatial apartheid, and a call for accountability of the state to act reasonably and in accordance with their obligations in how they use land,” she said in response to the ruling, adding: “We reiterate our call for the province to develop the site for social housing.”
Western Cape premier Alan Winde has called on Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City to “work with the provincial government and the City of Cape Town in addressing housing challenges”.
“We remain committed to achieving dignified spatial redress by working together. Constructive engagement is in the best interest of all of us. We want to see well-located social housing across our province and this requires all of us working together to achieve this,” he said.
“With this judgment confirming that the provincial government followed the correct processes, I am looking forward to engaging with important stakeholders on how we respond to the significant challenges and opportunities we face in building integrated towns and cities.”
My story is a story of eviction, displacement and a story of community. Four generations of my family have lived in the inner city and in this community
— Karen Hendricks
Meanwhile, the housing activists have had the wind taken out of their sails. Speaking from a makeshift meeting room in Ahmed Kathrada House after a solidarity meeting, Madikane says: “It [the judgment] disappointed a lot of people. It disrupts our minds and our hearts because we didn’t expect that from the court.”
Hendricks adds: “I am frustrated and so are many who have been campaigning for the Tafelberg site ... Naturally, we are frustrated because this has been our struggle. We would like to see our city transformed and become a more inclusive city. We would like to see Cape Town be a city that is accessible to poor and working-class people from across the spatial divide.”
While she acknowledges that the occupied buildings are far from perfect, she says they have become people’s homes. “We’ve cleaned it up, we’ve repurposed it. We are even planning our future homes. These occupations have not only become our homes, they have been the only housing solution for us. We do not see ourselves as the problem, we see ourselves as the solution.
“My story is a story of eviction, displacement and a story of community. Four generations of my family have lived in the inner city and in this community. Going to live in an occupation was another way of replicating the communities that we come from.”
Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix. As Pieterse notes, “the issue is not to try to solve the housing access issue overnight, but to register serious intent by repurposing existing land holdings for accelerated delivery as well as creating a new investment model for the private sector. There is enormous goodwill among housing activists and the private sector to address the housing crisis, but it does require decisive leadership. This has been lacking.”
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