Citizens’ groups are resisting gentrification, evictions and housing inequality in urban South Africa in a variety of creative ways. Ben Verghese and Ilham Rawoot report from Cape Town.
Twenty-five years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, land and housing inequalities remain marked – and highly contested. With a current backlog of 2.6 million families waiting for some form of social housing – whether fully or partly state-financed – in the country’s urban centres, this is an issue that’s about more than national budget allocations. While the government takes its time to figure it out, poor and working-class housing activists, a majority of whom are black or brown women, are using direct action to bring about change.
