Cissie Gool House residents call on Human Settlements Minister to intervene in their evictions
The residents demonstrated outside the city's civic centre on Friday to hand over a memorandum of demands in an effort to stop the looming evictions.
The occupiers of the old Woodstock Hospital also known as the Cissie Gool House are picketing outside the City of Cape Town Civic to handover a memorandum of demands to the Metro. This comes after the municipality expressed its intentions to evict the residents. Picture: Melikhaya Zagagana/EWN.
CAPE TOWN - The Cissie Gool House residents are calling for the intervention of Human Settlement Minister Thembi Simelane in their impending evictions by the City of Cape Town from the residence.
The residents demonstrated outside the city's civic centre on Friday to hand over a memorandum of demands in an effort to stop the looming evictions.
The building is a former Old Woodstock Hospital and was first occupied in 2017.
It was renamed after the first occupier, Cissie Gool, who was also an anti-apartheid activist in the 1960s.
Residents said that in the past, the city promised to accommodate the current 850 residents occupying the building when it redeveloped the place into social housing units.
According to the community leader in the area, who is also an occupier, Karen Hendricks, the municipality has since abandoned that promise and wants to cater to fewer people.
"And so we would like to say to the City of Cape Town today that we call for meaningful engagement, that we're calling for incremental development that does not displace any of the occupiers because the occupiers who live in Cissie Gool House have turned that space into a place called home."
The building was named after the first occupier, Cissie Gool who was also an activist.
— EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) January 31, 2025