THERE is confusion in Langa, Cape Town, after about 318 people were told they would be evicted from their houses.
The residents insist that they have owned their homes for more than 30 years, but the City of Cape Town says they are not owners but tenants.
A resident, Fezeka Plaatjie, said many of their parents were forcibly removed from Kensington and Ndabeni in the 1970s by the apartheid regime and dumped in the houses in Langa.
"After a rent boycott in the 1980s the houses were officially given to our parents in the early 1990s. Our parents were told the houses belonged to them and that they must stop renting them.
"We are surprised now that the city wants us to pay rent.
"After my father died I went to the Langa housing office to have the house transfered into my name.
"But I got a document stating 'lease to rent', though it is such an old house and we were never renting it. When I asked why, the housing office said they were following orders from the city," Plaatjie said.
Another resident, Zukiswa Dlova, said her uncle lived in the house from 1979 to 1995, and after his death she asked a family friend to look after the house. But last year "the city chased him out" and allegedly changed the locks without consulting them.
And Xoliswa Mkhohliso said the city had sent a tenant to move into her mother's house a day after her mother's funeral.
"My mother died in May last year. The day after the funeral, someone arrived with a letter from the housing office stating that we must leave because the house was now his," said Mkhohliso.
"We told him that we were going nowhere and even today we are still staying in that house."
Grace Blouw, manager of existing housing for the City of Cape Town, said cottages and maisonettes were classified as "saleable units".
"Langa still has 318 properties regarded as saleable dwellings. Tenants can apply to buy," she said.
Uproar over evictions
THERE is confusion in Langa, Cape Town, after about 318 people were told they would be evicted from their houses.
The residents insist that they have owned their homes for more than 30 years, but the City of Cape Town says they are not owners but tenants.
A resident, Fezeka Plaatjie, said many of their parents were forcibly removed from Kensington and Ndabeni in the 1970s by the apartheid regime and dumped in the houses in Langa.
"After a rent boycott in the 1980s the houses were officially given to our parents in the early 1990s. Our parents were told the houses belonged to them and that they must stop renting them.
"We are surprised now that the city wants us to pay rent.
"After my father died I went to the Langa housing office to have the house transfered into my name.
"But I got a document stating 'lease to rent', though it is such an old house and we were never renting it. When I asked why, the housing office said they were following orders from the city," Plaatjie said.
Another resident, Zukiswa Dlova, said her uncle lived in the house from 1979 to 1995, and after his death she asked a family friend to look after the house. But last year "the city chased him out" and allegedly changed the locks without consulting them.
And Xoliswa Mkhohliso said the city had sent a tenant to move into her mother's house a day after her mother's funeral.
"My mother died in May last year. The day after the funeral, someone arrived with a letter from the housing office stating that we must leave because the house was now his," said Mkhohliso.
"We told him that we were going nowhere and even today we are still staying in that house."
Grace Blouw, manager of existing housing for the City of Cape Town, said cottages and maisonettes were classified as "saleable units".
"Langa still has 318 properties regarded as saleable dwellings. Tenants can apply to buy," she said.
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