Cape Town - In a battle spanning six years, the Bromwell Street residents’ eviction matter heads to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) next week.
In November 2021, the residents, represented by Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) Law Centre, won a landmark judgment against the City of Cape Town which declared that the City’s emergency housing programme and implementation in relation to inner-city evictees rendered homeless upon eviction, unconstitutional.
The Western Cape High court ordered the City to provide the residents with temporary emergency accommodation or transitional housing as close to their current homes as possible.
The City was, however, granted leave to appeal and the matter will be heard at the SCA in Bloemfontein on Monday.
Lead attorney and head of the Law Centre at NU, Disha Govender, said the Western Cape High Court judgment and laws like the PIE Act were critical in protecting the dignity of those who face eviction.
Ntombi Sambu, a political organiser for NU who has worked with the residents alongside Govender, added: “It’s nearly six years since the case has been fought, with the Bromwell Street residents continuing to live their lives in the area, though the constant suspense of a looming eviction. Some of the children who were toddlers at the beginning of this case are now midway through primary school.”
The Bromwell Street residents, a group of poor and working-class families who have lived in a row of cottages on Bromwell Street in Salt River for generations and are facing eviction to rural hinterland, Wolwerivier, are challenging the constitutionality of the City’s housing programmes.
The residents argue that the City’s emergency housing programme and implementation of it is unconstitutional because they unlawfully exclude from its delivery of housing in the inner city, temporary emergency housing for people who are at risk of an eviction into homelessness, and unfairly discriminate against people who are evicted from private land.
The Woodstock Hub had bought the Bromwell Street houses in 2013 and instituted eviction proceedings during July 2015.
At the time the property development company wanted to construct “middle income” units for rent between R5 000 and R9 000 a month, and many of those living in the houses earned R3 500 a month or less.
The City had planned to relocate the people, including children, to an incremental development area in Wolwerivier.
Cape Times