![\"Aerial](\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cugs\/files\/2016\/04\/empower-shack-alfredo-brillembourg-design-indaba-5.jpg\")
<\/a>Aerial view of Khayelitsha<\/p><\/div>\n
In Cape Town, twenty percent of the population lives in over two hundred informal settlements. I visited Khayelitsha, the largest and fastest growing township in South Africa for my site visit. Khayelitsha was the result of one of the apartheid regime\u2019s final attempts to enforce the Group Areas Act, a law that assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections. The government saw the community as a solution to two problems: the growing number of migrants from the Eastern Cape and overcrowding in other Cape Town townships.<\/p>\n
Khayelitsha is divided into several sections and subsections, with special assignations for housing meant to be temporary. I visited Section C\u2019s BT area, where an organization named Empower Shack is working with community members to upgrade their living conditions. Their models are fire and flood resistant, which is significant since these are real threats for Khayelitsha residents. They are also affordable, since their market price is heavily subsidized by non-profit organizations. Additionally, Empower Shacks have toilets. Before the new homes, three hundred people shared fifteen toilets in the BT section. According to the community leaders we spoke to, walking to these toilets at night was very dangerous because the darkness made it more likely for residents to become victims of robbery or sexual assault.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Empower Shack we visited in the BT section<\/p><\/div>\n
The vision of the BT community is to use Empower Shacks to re-block their neighborhood. The new layout will include clear-cut roads, which will allow for emergency services to access the area with ease and more lighting, which will help to prevent crime at night. Since many of the residents moved to the area in the 1970s and 80s after migrating from the Eastern Cape and have lived in difficult conditions since then, Empower Shack is giving them a platform on which they can self-organize and make decisions that contribute to the overall improvement of their section of Khayelitsha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An important component of IHP has been housing site visits, during which we learn about struggles marginalized communities face when attempting to secure housing. In South Africa, housing is a constitutional right. When democracy was established in 1994, the new … Continue reading