Soweto residents demand immediate RDP houses
Frustrated Soweto residents took to the streets of Pretoria on Wednesday, demanding the free Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses they were promised as far back as 1996.
The protest follows a memorandum of demands submitted on October 17 last year, giving the government over a month to respond.
Months later, the housing crisis remains unresolved, intensifying frustrations and adding to an already volatile situation.
On Wednesday, elderly residents—some in wheelchairs—gathered outside the office of the Department of Human Settlements with placards and singing in solidarity as they called for their homes and title deeds.
"We need houses for everyone, each and every applicant must get a house. We don't know what is holding the government back, but we are saying we need houses—it is a basic need of life," said Soweto resident Motshidisi Shayo.
Among the demonstrators were individuals from the list of 1 million houses promised in Alexandra.
They urged the department to allocate RDP houses to those with C-forms that prove they had applied for government housing and to evict those without documentation.
The protest was led by the National Social Ills Community Forum which emphasized that since 1996, residents have held onto their C forms without receiving the homes they were promised.
Forum representative Nomthandazo Nhlapo pointed to ongoing discrepancies, with many C-forms missing from the department’s database.
"We have realised that other people have been allocated houses, but they find that those houses are not theirs—someone else is staying there," Nhlapo said.
She also criticized the government's claim that there isn’t enough land for housing.
"It is not true that there is no land, but land is actually given for the purpose of commercialisation," she added.
Residents were left disheartened as their latest plea for government intervention was ignored.
One of their key demands—a direct response from Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelani—went unanswered.
Simelani remained in Cape Town for the State of the Nation Address debates while the crisis escalated.
The 68-year-old Elina Mkhize Vilakazi urged the government to provide her with a proper home, explaining that her social grant is not enough to support her family.
"The money we get from Ramaphosa is little—it is not enough for my entire family. At times, my grandchildren go to school on an empty stomach. So I am appealing to the government for a decent house. I have been struggling for a long time," she told Jacaranda FM News.
As of last year, South Africa’s RDP housing backlog exceeded 1.2 million applications, with delays attributed to stalled projects, rapid urbanization, and administrative failures.
ALSO READ
