Cape Town - Today the Willow Arts Collective (WAC), a community living on the former site of the SA National Circus since 2016, together with Reclaim the City and Singabalaphoa will have a closed meeting to decide whether to accept an offer for short-term accommodation at a City-run shelter.
This comes after Magistrate Reaz Khan granted an eviction order against the WAC from their property in Observatory.
This follows a legal battle with the City, which owns the land, to evict them and move them to Philippi, Mfuleni and the Culemborg Safe Space. WAC said the housing options were not reasonable and rejected the offer.
In 2019, the City applied for the eviction so the site could be reincorporated into Hartleyvale sporting precinct, despite there being an abundance of sporting facilities in the area and a lack of affordable housing opportunities.
In court, WAC opposed the eviction on the grounds that the City had a constitutional obligation to use well-located land for housing, rather than displacing evictees out of the city.
Magistrate Khan supported these arguments and raised concerns about the suitability of two of the City’s emergency accommodation facilities, at Kampies and Mfuleni, then ordered that WAC be provided emergency accommodation at the Culemborg Safe Space 2, a City-run shelter in the Foreshore for 18 months.
WAC have until July 15 this year to accept the offer, and should it reject it, it must vacate the property on July 31. However, WAC has concerns about this housing option and feels that there are enough vacant sites around the inner city that could be considered for alternative housing.
One of the evictees, Shayne Taliona, said: “It is far from clear how this transient shelter will assist us in avoiding inevitable homelessness after 18 months, especially in a city that is notoriously unequal and lacks affordable housing opportunities close to jobs.”
WAC attorney Jonty Cogger said that while the offer of alternative accommodation was in a well-located area, the conditions at this transient shelter space were less than ideal as couples and families would be separated, and there was also a “day-time lockout” rule whereby everyone must leave at 7am and return at 6pm.
“There is no personal privacy or space. This is especially concerning in light of a 2017 Constitutional Court judgment in the matter of Dladla v City of Johannesburg that held that these types of rules infringed the constitutional rights to dignity, bodily integrity, and privacy, enshrined in sections 10, 12 and 14 of the Constitution,” Cogger said.