We live in

• A beautiful city
• A city with a legacy – the accumulation of centuries of prejudice and the devastation of apartheid
• In a country where the possibility of a rural livelihood is constantly diminishing
• In a continent whose people are on the move to towns and cities

Poverty and the future of poverty have been substantially excluded from local & business planning and strategy exercises.

Population Statistics

World Population 6.6 billion
50% urban population
Of which 32% live in slums/informal settlements

Sub Saharan Africa 747 million
35% urban population
Of which 72% live in slums/informal settlements
The forecast 2030 urban population is 2,5 times its 2000 level.

South Africa 48 million
56% urbanised in 2001
1,1% annual population growth rate
Average growth rate of cities 3%
Growth rate of small towns is higher

Cape Town 3,57 million
Estimated 947 000 households
Growing by 50 000 people per year
30 % below the poverty line

Employment
In 2006, 72% of Cape Town’s labour force worked in either skilled or highly skilled professions. The balance are low-skilled elementary workers and domestic workers in mostly service sector jobs. The medium-skilled (most of them former manufacturing workers) are under-skilled for the new vacancies and at the same time over-skilled for manual labour jobs. Cape Town is becoming a service-based city-region economy. Employers are critically short of workers with the appropriate skills, and tend to make up the deficit with capital or foreign labour, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the city-region’s economy.

The under-provision of subsidised housing in Cape Town
150 000 householdslive in informal settlements
200 000 householdslive in overcrowded formal housing or in yards
So 350 000 households is the total Housing Backlog
This is 37% of all households in the city.
The net annual increase in the Backlog is about 18 000 households

Where does the influx go?
The City makes no space available for these extra 18 000 households a year.
The space has to be found in suburbs and townships that are already poor and overcrowded.
Squatting on or invading open spaces is prohibited
Extending a shack in an informal settlement is tightly controlled
They can replace someone in an informal settlement by buying or renting a shack
They rent space in private properties: floor space, bed space, room, or a shack in the yard
Owning a shack in an informal settlement is rent-free. Anything else costs rent.

What is happening in Cape Town's poor areas?
At least two thirds of the city’s households are poor and nearly 40% of our residents are inadequately housed. Therefore only 280 000 poor households have adequate housing. But they must also accommodate the 200 000 un-housed households who are not living in informal settlements – so on average every 10 poor households have 7 other poor households living with them, permanently. At the current increments of housing supply & demand there will be an average of 2 households living in each poor home or flat in 10 years time.

How long can this continue?
How long can this compression within poor communities continue before it explodes – into Protest? Violence? Epidemics? Poor people will continue coming to Cape Town and cannot be prevented from doing so... This is a worldwide trend. It is more a problem of poverty rather than a housing problem. Where there is land available, there are no jobs or infrastrucure there so it is not viable for poor people to live there.

Challenges & Opportunities?
INTEGRATE.
CREATE EMPLOYMENT.
INCREASE HOUSING IN LOW DENSITY (RICHER) AREAS.
INCREASE INFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICE DELIVERY WITHIN EXISTING CITY FOOTPRINT.

There has been no improvement with regards to the transport problem faced by U.C.T Students. We have been trying to get the U.C.T. Jammie shuttle to Pinelands for sometime now. We were made aware of the transport problem through a petition on facebook, signed by 100 of the 800 students residing in Pinelands. We have also had students moving out of Pinelands due to transport problems.

Our biggest concern is the safety issue surrounding the lack of transport. We have been made aware that students desperate to get to and from varsity for early and late lectures are risking walking along the deserted stretch between Pinelands and Mowbray. We certainly don't need another student tragedy and especially not one of our own.

These requests were all refused on an equity issue due to the fact that other areas have also requested the Jammie. We were told the shuttle in Sunrise is a temporary chartered shuttle, brought in especially for the students who live there. We then contacted Robin Carlisle about our transport problems and councilor Brian Watkins who is also dealing with the Jammie shuttle. We will continue to negotiate this problem until we feel that a suitable solution has been put in place.

There will be a public meeting on Wed 17 March at which a number of issues, including transport will be discussed.
The venue is St Stephens Church Hall,
Central Square, Pinelands.
Time: 19h00 for 19h30.

It is salutary to be reminded that Pinelanders’ complaints are often minor compared to what others have to endure. At a recent meeting of the Pinelands Exco with the committee of the Kensington and Factreton Ratepayers’ Association, they listed some of their problems in one of the oldest communities in the Western Cape, for example, drug dealers operating with impunity, a high school with totally inadequate toilet facilities, an informal settlement in the graveyard with gravestones being vandalised and destroyed, rundown sports facilities and a lack of information and consultation, so unwanted and unsightly buildings are put up without any prior notice.

Alderman Brian Watkyns was able to advise them on how to influence what goes on in their community. In view of some of the grossly unfair criticism he has received recently, these visitors were most impressed by how well-informed and helpful he was, and how hard he works in all parts of his constituency.

At the same meeting, Gerry Adlard, Development Consultant of Cape Town, gave some sobering facts and statistics about informal housing which is where much of Cape Town will be living for the foreseeable future. Because of the housing backlog, migration and rapid urbanisation, it is impossible to build enough low-cost housing. The major problem is lack of suitable land which is why so many informal settlements are in unsuitable environments such as flood plains, electric or pipe line servitudes, road reserves - or graveyards.

Only the West Coast has spare land - at R1,000,000.00 per hectare! In addition to land for housing, there is also a need for sewage, clinics, schools and job opportunities. For every R3 spent on infrastructure or services, an additional R2 has to be spent because of vandalism. Gerry Adlard will be the invited speaker at the first General Meeting of the Pinelands Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association to be held at the Town Hall on Wednesday 17 February at 7.30 p.m.

The secret to a well-run suburb is an active and involved community. The Pinelands Association is there to serve the community and deal with problems and complaints. It does its best to stop our Garden Suburb from deteriorating any further.