HOME: What a blessing.

Everyone knows the saying: “home is where the heart is”, that has personified the thoughts of self-belonging in a cozy, loving space - a shelter that welcomes you with warmth, every night and rainy, cold winter –summer days. The importance of going to a place where all troubles and problems of the world are shutout – a place; to unwind, meditate, recap and gather all the strength to face the unkind streets of this world - a blessing for those who have it.

I often wondered about the people that roam these unkind streets every night and day - seeking shelter, under bridges and verandas of governed, some ungoverned debilitated buildings; on silent cold winter-summer days. Some of these people were chased out of their homes mainly because they are destitute and can’t afford to pay rent or own their own homes. Some were chased away, because their parents were abusive and had no one to turn to. Some were driven away by family greed and nasty power battles between siblings, in some cases or extended family members in others - roaming the twilight streets of this unkind world not by choice, but by emotional, physical or psychological force.

Living in a shack is not a pleasant experience. I remember growing up in Katlehong, Skosana section, during the early eighties. In our yard we had a makeshift kitchen-shack that was built by my late grandfather, Ngako Jiyane; for lack of space in our two roomed main house. And at times we would sleep in that shack when other family members came to visit from afar. The shack was so cold during wintertime and so hot during summertime that one could testify that those rusty sheets of metal had a life of their own, breathing and blowing at indecisive moments. My grandfather would insulate the inner parts of the shack with feeble sheets of cardboard – however on subzero temperature nights, made little difference; expect to ward off against hush piecing winter winds.

Now, imagine yourself living in a shack - a shack that numerous impoverished people call home. A home that they go to, not by choice and definitely not as sweet as a home should be. Shacks ruffled by winds, drenched by rains, and at times engulfed by fire, which has happened many times over in South Africa. Especially in places like Alexandra township, which has been a ‘pimple’ in the face of Sandton for years and government doing a little to uplift that community.

The issue of housing has long since been government’s hunch-back for years now. A hunch-back that is now worsened with the world’s global melt-down (Recession), and the price of houses rocketing beyond the reach of ordinary workers. Some are losing their houses to banks due to the unsteady Repo Rate and increasing expenses around the world - with expenditure out-weighting capital in reserves. People living from hand-to-mouth, house bonds left unpaid. Debt collectors descending like a pack of wolves upon its prey.

Concerning the issue of property taxes – I think that it is a good and viable thing that home owners or property owners should pay property tax, however property taxes are not needed when home owners as expected to pay for rates and services which are also taxable by law. Property taxes is our dynamic society can be viewed as pay rent on rent; meaning that home owners that are paying their bonds every month and are also paying property taxes, are in actual fact renting their own home from their municipalities. In a long term analysis, property owners will be evicted from their own homes that they’ve worked hard for and legal own when their home bonds are paid off. Property means your children do not own your home when you die, they are renting it. There are no property owners, expect government. The government must reconsider this stance on property tax.

To own your own home is truly a privilege in this time and age. In South Africa we live in degrading times of RDP housing and little bond houses that are too expensive for their size. In some of these bond houses you can’t even own a double-bed, because it eats all the space for one to maneuver around in. In some cases you have seven to ten members residing in a two room house. As oppose to bygone days of ‘four-room’ houses when families of about seven to ten members were cramped in – and this was in the past. Conditions are not better now, they are worse.

The government is at times not to blame for the problems that occur in distributing RDP houses as there are some unscrupulous RDP agents that dupe home seekers every day. However, the government needs to acknowledge that the type of housing and yard space that RDP houses are built in cannot sustain and shelter larger families. In most cases the same houses start disintegrating, two years after their built, due to poor and greedy contractors and want to profit from housing contracts, thus build to save money, not to deliver quality to the people.

With the recent spat of violence towards service delivery, and the more people moving away from rural South Africa, seeking housing in urban areas. Not to mention this great Diaspora of our African brothers and sisters moving south, hunting for a better future. The debacle towards housing is becoming a problematic mountainous matter for our government.

Who doesn’t want to own their own home? I sometimes askance an ornament that has hung on my mother’s wall, since eighty-six, as a house-warming gift from my late grandmother. Titled, ‘Home Blessings’ and reads thus; “The Crown of the home is Godliness; The Blessing of the home is Order; The Glory of the home is Hospitality; The Blessing of the home is Contentment.” And wonder, at this rate that South Africa’s housing mess is moving. How many future generations will have such an ornament hanging in their own homes, on their own walls?

By Linda Sakazi Thwala

WORD TO A NEW HOUSING REVOLUTION!