Cissie Gool House residents, land rights groups want meaningful engagement with CoCT over eviction plans

CAPE TOWN - Land rights groups in partnership with the residents of the former Old Woodstock Hospital, also known as the Cissie Gool House, are calling for a meaningful engagement with the City of Cape Town. 

Residents picketed outside the City of Cape Town's Civic Centre on Friday to hand over a memorandum of grievances.

This follows the metro's intentions to evict the residents from the building without an alternative.

The Cissie Gool House accommodates over 800 residents.

The Old Woodstock Hospital was first occupied in 2017 and renamed after its first occupier, Cissie Gool, who was also an activist.

Residents said they had spent their money to redevelop the building into a residence.

The city now wants to build social housing units that will accommodate a lesser number of 500 residents. 

Reclaim the City leader and occupier, Karen Hendricks, said that many people would be left homeless if the municipality continued with its evictions without an alternative.

"In 2019, we had what we called the co-design process where the city themselves believed the occupation could be developed with the existing occupiers but later on they abandoned that process."

Hendricks added that residents had on many occasions tried to engage with the city to express their grievances but they had been ignored.