Evicted Alex residents lash out at CoJ, say it has neglected constitutional duty to ensure adequate housing

JOHANNESBURG - Displaced Alexandra residents who were evicted from government housing containers say the City of Joburg has neglected its constitutional duty to ensure adequate housing. 

More than 100 evicted families have now spent two nights on the street after city officials, security personnel and police removed them from the units on Tuesday.

The metro executed a court order issued last year after residents illegally invaded the property since March.

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The 175 units were built at the height of the pandemic to accommodate people amid a housing crisis in Alex - but they remained unoccupied.
 
Residents subsequently took it upon themselves to use the vacant property. 

The yellow and blue container homes stand empty more than three years after they were built, while families outside the gate languish without shelter or support.

Thabiso Dube can be seen combing through piles of clothes and broken furniture, salvaging what he can after his belongings were callously discarded onto the street. 

"They said they'd built a place for the people of Alexandra. Here's the people of Alexandra, they are inside the place but you are chasing them out. Who is supposed to come and stay here?"

Along the wall is a row of makeshift shelters - each mattress is arranged to form a room divider while blankets are thrown on top to create a canopy.

Those who don’t have enough bedding, sleep in the open.

"It has been raining. As you can see, we tried to take cover with our mattresses. Even the small kids are sleeping on the street with us."

Dube said that residents had nowhere else to go.

The city said that the housing project had been facing significant delays.