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MEC for Gauteng Human Settlements; Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Jacob Mamabolo, has today handed over 10 temporary units  in Alexandra to house families that were evicted in Marlboro near Alexandra. The temporary structures are intended to serve as a disaster relief area for the province and will in the interim be used to house the community that was evicted from Marlboro Industrial Area.

The community had settled on private property in what is called the K200/ K203 area in Marlboro and were subsequently evicted by the new landowner.  Government responded swiftly to 91 families that were left stranded after the eviction.

Most of the stranded persons were women and children. Through the department’s intervention, some were moved to Alexandra Community Hall whilst others were accommodated at the Marlboro Emergency centre.

“We are pleased to be handing out these temporary structures to the evicted families. Government in this instance was responding to an extreme case of eviction by providing temporary accommodation. We were disturbed by this sudden eviction during the middle of winter where there was not even a notice given about the intention to evict,” MEC Mamabolo said. 

MEC Mamabolo further said, “We committed to ourselves to find relief for these victims of eviction but we are also responding to two other groups namely the victims of the fire at the Madala Hostel and another group that was accommodated at the Alexandra temporary site next to the Fire station.

In this regard we are going to replace the zink structure with the Everite Structure. We want to emphasize that this is a temporary arrangement and I hope that these residents will not  be here for more than 12 months,” said the MEC.

One of the beneficiaries is Sanie Rakau, 46 who is a grandmother to twins Omphile and Omphemetse, 1 year 4 months. “I am very grateful for the intervention by the department  in our desperate case.  When the eviction took place I was left homeless with these infants, at least now we have a shelter for the winter season,” she said.  

Speaking to the  issue of housing going forward after  the temporary structures, Mamabolo said, “We will follow a profiling and verification process against the demand database to asses who qualifies for state subsidised housing.”

These temporary structures are family sized units of 5 by 12 meters in dimension, that have a galvanized frame; whose walls are built of fibre cement and polystyrene.