Shacks damaged by strong winds in Ndlovini Harare khayelitsha. Winds wreaked havoc in some parts of the Western Cape following a Level 9 warning by the South African Weather Service, in a country where many cannot afford formal housing. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane/Independent Newspapers
By Tswelopele Makoe
In South Africa, millions of citizens continuously contend with a basic human right: housing.
Fighting for a roof over your head is an arduous, sometimes futile task in modern-day SA, particularly for the majority of the population that live in overwhelming impoverishment.
As of this year, over a third of the entire national workforce is comprised of the informal workforce.
According to Stats SA, 8.2 million unemployed citizens were recorded in the first quarter of 2024, increasing by over 300 000 since the end of 2023.
In a nation where over half of the entire population lives below the poverty line, the ability to attain stable housing is often dire, as many struggle to keep a roof over their heads. A raging societal issue in recent years has been that of disintegrating, unmaintained infrastructures that are rampant across the country.
This has exacerbated the issue of shelter for many.
Innumerable working citizens who simply cannot afford formal dwellings such as houses, flats, townhouses, and communal or backyard rooms, are forced to live in informal dwellings such as shacks, sheds and other makeshift structures.
For many others, housing is simply unattainable, hence today, there are over 55 000 homeless people across the nation.
The cost of living in South Africa is absolutely crippling to the vast majority of its citizens. This, in fact, completely dictates one’s attainment and experience of human rights such as proper housing.
This ripples into the infringement of other inherent rights, such as that to clean water, sanitation, electricity, quality education (which is often linked to the areas one lives in), and so many more.
Statista reported that the informal sector employment peaked at almost 8 million workers in 2023. This means that more and more citizens, regardless of educational and skill level, are forced to work for minimum wage in the informal sector. This includes various forms of contract work, occupations such as street vendors, domestic workers, agricultural workers, and more.
Furthermore, these occupations are paying exorbitantly less than the price of living, forcing more and more people to live in informal dwellings, and to live from hand-to-mouth.
This is further worsened by the fact that there are minimal labour protections in the informal sector. Additionally, various studies show that women are oftentimes earning vastly less than men in these occupations.
This is despite the fact that female-led households constitute approximately 43% of all South African households. The financial strain that is felt across the nation is one that deeply affects the rest of our society and leads to countless other forms of disempowerment.
High rates of unemployment and informal employment, although playing a critical role to the basic survival of countless citizens, still means that individuals have very limited financial power. A low income is one of the primary reasons as to why someone is rejected for a bank loan.
This then worsens the ability for individuals to attain loans for homes, income properties and businesses that will significantly empower them.
According to the “Daily Investor”, in the last five years, a significant portion of South Africans’ income goes towards paying their debt. In fact, the average middle-class citizen’s debt amounts to R152 715. This is another factor that hinders people from successfully attaining the necessary capital from banking institutions, and returning the capital that is needed for their endeavours.
Some citizens, after strenuously working towards the attainment of a loan, still face disputes with their banking institutions. A prime example is that of Shamilla and Roman Pather of Pinetown, who were unscrupulously overcharged for their home loan by Standard Bank.
The well-established financial institution claimed that the Pather’s owed them a hefty R600 000. After their accountant found that the couple had actually paid their loan in full, the couple were dragged from pillar to post by the bank’s legal representatives as they tried to make their case.
There has been a steep upsurge in the frequency of cases where banks use manipulative and unethical practices to disempower citizens, strip them of their assets, and destroy their credit records.
A Forest Hill, Gauteng, couple also faced-off with Standard Bank for the bank’s unethical behaviour and the substantial overpayment of their home loan.
Recently, Briefly News reported that Capitec has been handed the title of the most complained-about bank in South Africa.
Just last year, an Al Jazeera investigation found that several key officials at ABSA, Standard Bank and Sasfin Bank were supporting a gold smuggling gang in laundering billions of rands in exchange for regular bribes.
Institutional corruption has extensive long-term implications for citizens and can impact their ability to attain a home for the rest of their lives.
Institutional abuses, biases and exploitations are rampant across the nation, and are being increasingly contended with.
In the last year, the ombudsman received 118 complaints, where approximately 33% of the cases found the banks in question to be unlawfully collecting or attempting to collect prescribed debts.
There are countless other examples of institutional biases and discriminatory policies in our society, and they all equate to one thing: intentional disempowerment.
The structures, legislature, policies and institutions in our society can be intently detrimental to our citizenry and need to be redressed in accordance with the unique needs of our society.
We face all sorts of arbitrary discriminatory practices in society, ones that seek to further disempower the impoverished, debilitate the middle class, and promote the exploitative needs of the rich minority, the top 1%.
This is clear from the rate at which banks reject home and business loans, from the rate of financial exclusions by educational institutions, from the rate of socio-economic inequalities rife in our public services, infrastructures and facilities, and so many more unjust aspects of our society.
The institutions and structures in South Africa simply do not support that vast populace of this nation, and the challenges that they contend with regularly.
Banks, schools, governance, leadership, and various other institutions are frequently accused of being self-serving, power-hungry, and significantly unethical, continuously aiding and abetting wealthy figures, state captures, and corrupt regimes guilty of gross human rights abuses.
Fundamental human rights such as housing and safety are inherent and entrenched into the fabric of this nation. Many of our existing structures and institutions are adopted from Euro-Western structures and societies.
It is my distinct belief that if the institutions of this nation work against the people, they must be broken down and destroyed.
Systems and institutions exist solely for the support and empowerment of the nation. When they stop doing this, they should be redressed expeditiously.
The issue of human rights such as adequate housing, access and empowerment always correlates back to one of the most divisive topics of post-apartheid South African era: the issue of land. Land equates to homes, which equate to stability, and ultimately empowerment, economic potential and financial prosperity.
Housing is directly related to individual and collective empowerment.
Access to safety, security, and affordable housing is a fundamental human right that is entrenched by our Constitution. Any aspect of our society that goes against that which is granted by the Constitution has no place in our society or our future.
By prioritising housing as a key element of empowerment, we pave the way for greater economic and social equity, cohesion, advancement and inclusion in our society. Housing is not merely a benefit - it is the foundation of a just society.
As forthrightly said by the great philosopher, Confucius: “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
* Tswelopele Makoe is a Gender & Social Justice Activist and the Editor at Global South Media Network. She is a Researcher and Columnist, published weekly in the Sunday Independent, Independent Online (IOL), Global South Media Network (GSMN), Sunday Tribune and Eswatini Daily News. She is also an Andrew W. Mellon scholar, pursuing an MA Ethics at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own.