JOHANNESBURG - Over 400 residents who were evicted from the Pharoe Park flats in Germiston will now join thousands of applicants waiting for RDP houses in the City of Ekurhuleni.
The queue of about 360,000 people includes Sassa beneficiaries, backyard dwellers, and the unemployed.
Ekurhuleni is on a mission to reclaim the CBD from illegal building occupiers.
On Tuesday, the City began evicting Pharoe Park residents, owing to non-payment of their subsidised rental.
The residents produced receipts of rental payments – which collectively amount to millions of rand each month – to individuals they understood to be municipal employees.
However, Ekurhuleni says it has no record of such a payment. It demands that they identify the impostors.
The municipality was granted an eviction order in June. It says the residents were given eviction notices in the same month.
However, the residents claim they were never notified of an impending eviction.
Charged scenes played out when eviction security personnel stormed the housing complex, forcibly removing families.
Ekurhuleni Human Settlement MMC Kgopelo Hollo says more than 80% of occupiers have been evicted so far, with one block yet to face evictions pending police reinforcement.
Those who’ve already been removed plead for government assistance in securing alternative accommodation.
"City officials need to give us alternative accommodation. Human beings cannot sleep in the streets. We are even pleading to the President to assist us,” one occupier told eNCA.
Hollo says the City will prioritise the housing needs of households with a combined income that is less than R14 000 a month.