LEBOGANG MAILE | State, community must join forces to abolish hostels

The provision of housing in Gauteng is far more complex than many people care to admit.

With the development of every human settlement comes a number of challenges, such as our province’s growing number of migrant labourers, the illegal invasions of government property and land earmarked for new settlements that obstructs development, and delivering services which are already overstretched.

While the Gauteng government has made significant strides in providing access to adequate housing, one of our most complicated challenges is how we overhaul the province’s hostel system and improve the living conditions of hostel dwellers.

Hostels are a legacy of apartheid, which were first introduced by the mines to accommodate black migrant labourers cheaply. Most of them were built for single males and organised by ethnicity.

Everyday hostel dwellers are confronted with extreme difficulties such as collapsing infrastructure, unhygienic conditions, overcrowding, poor safety and security, high levels of informality, a lack of basic services and general negative perceptions towards hostels.

Recognising that the province’s hostels are informal settlements of a special kind, we have meticulously started the first phase of implementing the Gauteng Hostel Redevelopment Programme.

The plan is being rolled out in phases. Ultimately, it will see the demolition of the current physical structures and buildings that define hostels and replace them with multi-story walk-up units or family units.

The Gauteng provincial government recognises that the success of the programme is dependent on the buy-in from residents of the 65 public-owned hostels in the province.

In principle, hostel leaders are in agreement with the government that together we need to develop a social compact that eradicates hostels and ultimately results in the development of residence that will see an end of the squalid living conditions of so many men, women and children.

The programme will also promote social cohesion and community integration. This is because it will ensure consistent and sincere community and stakeholder participation from project conceptualisation to implementation, all the way till handing over to beneficiaries.

In Johannesburg, the Gauteng department of human settlements owns six hostels. Crucial interventions, which have been implemented, include routine cleaning and environmental upkeep, major repairs and bulk infrastructure upgrading.

Detailed planning for a 2,000-unit precinct development, which will house beneficiaries from the six hostels in the inner city, is being drawn up. It will be finalised by the end of the 2024/25 fiscal year. 

It is an undeniable fact that the overhauling of the province’s hostels has been slow and is going to take time. 

For this programme to work and achieve its objectives, it will require all three spheres of government, the private sector, and communities (a multi-stakeholder approach that creates transformative partnerships) to work together to ensure its success one step at a time.

• Maile is Gauteng MEC for human settlements and infrastructure development.