Regulator urged to step in as Goodwood housing concerns grow

Pressure is mounting for intervention at DCI Community Housing Services in Goodwood, as a legal clinic formally calls on the Social Housing Regulatory Authority to step in on behalf of struggling tenants.

The People’s Legal Centre wrote a letter dated Friday, July 4, requesting the housing regulatory authority to address the concerns of the tenants. 

In a letter to the DCI in July last year, the tenants raised nine grievances, including daily service fees of electricity and water, sewage and refuse rates, and poor attendance to maintenance issues, among others. 

They maintain that their concerns have not been addressed and say the issues have worsened since last year, with new allegations that some tenants are being denied access to the property due to late payments.

One tenant said her electricity has been off since November last year and that her daily service charges bill had amounted to more than R2 000. 

She has to pay that bill before she can have her electricity turned back on

“How do they expect pensioners to pay this when they know how much we get paid.  And then we must still buy our electricity and water with what money?  It doesn't make sense,” the tenant said.

Northern News is in possession of the reply of the DCI to the complaints, which is dated July 2024, confirming that electricity and water each have a monthly basic service fee. 

It stated, at that time, that the charges are deducted daily to elevate the pressure of paying a monthly fee of R387.50. The daily rate is R8.05 for electricity and R4.53 for water, which made the service charge billed to R12.503 per day.

“We acknowledge that utilities are nowadays a significant cost for all citizens of this country. But please be assured that the current tariffs are in line with the City of Cape Town’s tariff structure for social housing,” the reply stated.

Another tenant stated that parking is a major issue as well.

“With fines mounting up to R10 000 over the past year,  I had to sell my car in order to keep up with payments of fines. Parking was approved by the ward councillor, yet DCI has still not made any effort to set up the parking for the tenants, leaving us with fines and our vehicles being damaged,” she said

Northern News is also in possession of a communication from Ward 27 councillor Cecile Janse van Rensburg confirming that DCI’s application to lease a City-owned parking area was approved by council on Tuesday, May 28 this year

A GOOD Party councillor, Axolile Notywala, said they had received repeated complaints from tenants living in DCI, and other facilities like Conradie Park in Thornton.

“On June 5, I raised these issues during a City of Cape Town Human Settlements portfolio committee meeting. Despite the seriousness of the concerns, they were largely dismissed. I was told the City was “already investigating” the electricity charges and that the other concerns were “not the City’s responsibility,” he said in a statement.

His attempts to follow up on the investigation from the City officials proved futile, he said.

The Inspire Network non-profit organisation and a housing activist group, Housing Assembly, said they were also helping a pensioner who was denied access at the beginning of June.

The pensioner complained that she was informed that her lease at the DCI was not being renewed and that she must vacate the premises by Saturday, May 31. Her biometric access control was then deactivated on June 1, they said in a statement.

“Throughout this ordeal, we have actively engaged the chairperson of the Housing Assembly, Mrs. Kashiefa Achmat, who subsequently sought assistance from the People's Legal Centre to support the affected tenant. (Our client) made the difficult decision to temporarily vacate the premises. 

“She was unlawfully locked out, effectively evicted without due process, and left homeless despite her rental payments being current,” the groups said in a statement.

The DCI did not respond to the questions of Northern News by the deadline. Several attempts to follow up on WhatsApp and email were unsuccessful.

The  People’s Legal Centre stated that these complaints constitute maladministration by DCI, as contemplated in sections 1 and 11(3)(f) of the Social Housing Act. 

The centre requested the housing authority to respond to their letter by Friday, July 11. The provincial government and the City were also copied in the communication.

DCI Goodwood Station complex is a large community of 1055 units with around 3000 tenants.