VAN DER WESTHUIZEN J
is defined as very cheap housing provided for a maximum of one year. The City uses
designated buildings, listed in the policy,73 to accommodate affected households while
attempting to address their longer-term needs. These buildings are referred to by the
City as ―temporary accommodation as decant‖. The City‘s approach is to engage with
communities and, as far as possible and within its resources, relocate households to
temporary accommodation from identified ―bad buildings‖, described as ―unfit for
human occupation due inter alia to serious fire hazard (they are multi-storey
buildings) and/or the risk caused by unhygienic conditions within such buildings.‖74
[79] However, the temporary accommodation programme is not available to persons
evicted by private owners. The Housing Report notes that an average of 200 eviction
proceedings are instituted each month, and states:
―26
. . . The City does not currently have alternative accommodation available to
temporarily or permanently accommodate those who face homelessness as a
result of such eviction or threatened eviction. All the buildings that have
been identified by the City for purposes of alternative accommodation can be
categorised into one of the following categories:
26.1
currently occupied;
26.2
have been earmarked and will be occupied by affected households
from other identified buildings;
73
Id at para 25.
74
Id at para 24. The City notes that prior to this Court‘s judgment in Olivia Road above n 12, the City obtained
eviction orders against the occupiers of ―bad buildings‖ by way of section 12 of the National Building
Regulations and Building Standards Act 103 of 1977, but since that judgment such evictions have ceased and
the City now seeks to relocate the occupiers of such buildings voluntarily. The Housing Report states at para
24:
―The City considers it a priority to assist the occupiers of these buildings by relocating them to
temporary accommodation because of the threat to their lives. The City endeavours to do so
on an emergency basis within its resources. . . . The City‘s approach is to engage in so far
possible, with the owners and occupiers of these buildings in order to negotiate the urgent
voluntary relocation of the occupiers to temporary alternative accommodation provided by the
City‖.
37
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