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Cities, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 449–462, 1998
1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Pergamon
Printed in Great Britain
0264-2751/98 $19.00 ⫹0.00
PII: S0264-2751(98)00040-7
Hear no housing, see no housing
Immigration and homelessness in the new South
Africa
David A McDonald
Department of Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6
The housing crisis in South Africa has received an enormous amount of attention from govern-
ments, NGOs and academics. One issue that has been virtually ignored, however, is housing
for non-citizens – particularly poor, undocumented migrants from other parts of Africa who
are arriving in the country in search of work and accommodation. This paper explores official
government policy on the issue as well as ground-level attitudes of citizens and non-citizens.
Although little has been done to address this potentially explosive issue, there are grounds for
optimism for progressive policy development. 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved
The provision of housing to the urban poor presents
an enormous challenge to the new, post-apartheid
South African government. With a housing backlog
officially estimated at over 3 million units (growing
by an estimated 178 000 units per year) – and with
an additional 720 000 units requiring significant
upgrading to meet minimum standards of accommo-
dation – it is easy to see why housing has been put
at the top of the national government’s list of recon-
struction and development priorities (GSA, 1994,
1995a; Mthembi-Mahanyele, 1997).
Plans to have one million homes built by the year
2000 have proven to be elusive, however. Delays with
local government restructuring, redlining by private
banks (although no longer happening “officially”), the
soaring costs of building materials, fiscal restraints,
and difficulties establishing effective forums for com-
munity participation in the planning process have
meant serious delays in housing developments.
Delays have been so serious that at the end of their
first year in office the African National Congress
(ANC) could report on no more than seven housing
projects of any significance – three of which were still
in the planning stages (Naidoo, 1995, pp 28–29).
By the end of 1997 the situation had improved con-
siderably, with the Department of Housing claiming
that over 700 000 housing subsidies had been
approved by the provincial housing boards, and
450 000 state-financed homes were either built or
449
under construction, but this is still far short of the
pace anticipated by the government and in many cases
little more than a concrete foundation has actually
been built (Mthembi-Mahanyele, 1997; Mail and
Guardian, 1998).
The upshot of these delays has been growing dis-
satisfaction with housing policy and delivery in the
townships and informal settlements of the country as
hundreds of thousands of urban poor continue to live
in the same conditions that they did under apartheid.
Although the ANC enjoys widespread popularity
amongst African voters, the housing question remains
on the front burner of public concern, ready to boil
over if significant headway is not made over the next
few years.
Added to this concern is the question of housing
for non-South Africans living in the country – parti-
cularly those from other parts of Africa who have
entered the country without proper documentation,
are poor, and who migrate to urban centres in search
of work and accommodation. Current estimates of
between 2.5 and 9 million undocumented migrants in
the country are methodologically suspect and most
likely wildly exaggerated (on this point see Brunk,
1996; Crush, 1997), but even if there are as few as
500 000 such migrants currently living in South
Africa this places an important additional demand on
affordable urban housing.
It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that so little
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
attention has been paid to this question of housing
for non-South African citizens in the otherwise very
extensive and impressive literature on low-cost hous-
ing in the country. With the important exception of
housing for contract migrant workers (Crush and
James, 1991, 1995; Ramphele, 1993) there has been
virtually nothing written on housing for non-South
African citizens in any official South African govern-
ment papers or in any academic journals.
Admittedly, South Africa’s housing crisis for its
own citizens is enormous – not to mention the myriad
of other post-apartheid challenges facing the coun-
try – and South African policy makers, NGOs and
academics can be forgiven for not having given this
issue of migration and housing much thought to date.
Nor is South Africa alone in this regard. An exhaus-
tive search of the literature found nothing on the sub-
ject elsewhere in Africa, Asia or Latin America –
despite the fact that countries like Zimbabwe,
Uganda, India and Thailand have large foreign
migrant populations and severe housing crises for
their own citizens. There is, of course, an enormous
literature on rural/urban migration in the South, but
this is all internal migration. There is also a growing
UN literature on the rights of immigrants to housing
(more on this below), but there would appear to be a
real dearth of country-specific studies highlighting the
legislative obstacles to housing for foreign migrants
in countries in the South and documenting their
experiences with safe and affordable shelter.
This dearth of literature is in direct contrast to the
enormous amount of research on immigration and
housing immigrant-receiving countries in the North.
From Latin Americans in Maryland, USA (Cheney
and Cheney, 1997), to Russians in Israel (Lipshitz,
1997), and elderly Turks in Denmark (Lewinter et al.,
1996), access to all forms of housing by all types of
(im)migrants has been documented and studied in
great detail in North America, Europe, Australia and
Japan (see also Bourassa, 1994; Komai, 1995; Cul-
hane et al., 1996; Daly, 1996; Pitkin et al., 1997).
This is not to say that housing for immigrants has
been dealt with satisfactorily in these countries as a
result of all of this research, or that Northern countries
should (or could) serve as examples of how to address
the question fiscally or legislatively, but it does tell
us that South Africa is not alone in tackling these very
difficult policy questions.
Most importantly, the issue of housing for foreig-
ners is not going to go away in South Africa and it
is important that the South African government has a
better understanding of the dynamics of the issue in
order to deal with it in the future. The primary intent
of this paper, therefore, is to put the issue of migration
and housing on the table for discussion in South
Africa and to provide some concrete, case study
material on which to base the analysis. It should also
be noted that this paper is part of a larger research
initiative on cross-border migration being undertaken
450
by the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP).
1
Cross-border migration is the subject of a heated
debate in South Africa at the moment (Minaar and
Hough, 1996; Crush, 1997; McDonald et al., 1998)
and a wide range of issues related to South African
immigration policy are currently being revamped
(GSA, 1997, 1998).
Within this context of change and controversy this
paper attempts to understand what, if anything, the
South African government is doing about housing for
foreign-born Africans living in the country; and what
the attitudes of South African citizens and non-citi-
zens are on this issue of housing and what it could
mean for housing and immigration policy in South
Africa in the future. Two informal settlements
2
and
one formal township
3
from the greater Cape Town
area served as case studies for the research and pro-
vide us with a concrete, albeit geographically limited,
perspective on this very important and politically
sensitive policy area.
The first major finding of the study is that there are
no clear policies on access to housing for non-citizens
in South Africa. There are policy documents, Consti-
tutional clauses and international agreements which
commit the South African government, in various
ways, to “ensuring access to adequate housing for all
persons living in the country”, but these commitments
are often inconsistent with one another and even con-
tradictory when it comes to defining who is entitled
to housing.
The second major finding is that there would
appear to a consistent 60/40 split in the attitudes of
black
4
South Africans towards non-citizens, with 60%
of the people interviewed responding negatively to
questions of access to housing and other basic ser-
vices for non-citizens and 40% responding positively
1
A detailed summary of SAMP and a list of publications can be
found at www.queensu.ca/samp
2
The term “informal settlement” or “squatter camp” is used here
to describe housing that is built without formal authorization and
generally initiated by the dwellers themselves. These settlements
tend to be set up on open, peri-urban land in South Africa, and
are characterized by a high percentage of owner occupiers. The
settlements generally lack any major infrastructure and the houses
are made of makeshift building materials, reflecting the low income
levels of the population. Nevertheless, informal settlements in
South Africa encompass a wide range of physical qualities, location
and degrees of recognition by authorities (Lohnert, 1997).
3
The term “formal township” refers to urban areas that were desig-
nated as living areas for those classified as Asian, coloured or
African under the apartheid system. Since the dismantling of these
racial laws in the early 1990s there have been no formal restrictions
on where people can live in South African cities, but the economic
legacies of apartheid are such that most township residents are
unable to afford a home in the better serviced parts of the urban
areas. Conditions vary widely in the townships, but are generally
characterized by poorly constructed single and row housing, low
rise migrant-worker hostels, and backyard shacks. Most townships
remain woefully under-serviced and the African townships in parti-
cular are in desperate need of basic upgrading.
4
Following the most common use of racial terminology in South
Africa, the term “black” is used in this paper to refer to Asians,
coloureds and Africans collectively.
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
or neutrally. Interestingly, there was a marked
absence of xenophobic comments about foreigners,
with those opposed to giving access to housing for
non-citizens doing so for quite rational reasons. There
were also no significant differences across age, gen-
der, income or other important demographic variables
amongst South African citizens when it came to opi-
nions on migrants and housing, making it virtually
impossible to develop any kind of attitudinal profile.
And finally, non-citizens themselves are extremely
ambiguous on the whole question of access to housing
and are uncertain about what the future holds for them
in terms of long-term accommodation. Although most
of the foreigners interviewed have had a very positive
experience in South Africa, and at least half of those
interviewed plan to stay in the country for an
extended period of time, none have any long-term
plans for housing.
The paper begins with a brief description of the
communities surveyed and the methodologies
employed. This is followed by a discussion of the
legal and constitutional “rights” of non-citizens with
respect to housing, with particular attention paid to
the discrepancies in South African legislation and the
confusion around who is entitled to buy a house
and/or receive a housing subsidy in the country
(recent developments within the United Nations Con-
ference on Human Settlements are provided as an
international reference point). The paper then reviews
the attitudes of citizens towards non-citizens on ques-
tions of access to housing and other basic services
and documents the experiences of non-citizens with
respect to housing in South Africa. The final section
of the paper looks at some of the policy implications
stemming from the research.
Methodology
The first community studied was Marconi Beam, an
informal settlement of approximately 5700 people
located in a quasi-industrial area in the northern sub-
urbs of Cape Town approximately 8 km from the city
centre (see Fig. 1 for a map of the Cape Town metro-
politan area in a South African and regional context;
for an historical overview of Marconi Beam, see Saff,
1996). Marconi Beam was chosen for the study by
virtue of the fact that it is the site of one of the largest
and highest profile housing projects for the urban poor
in the Western Cape province with 1000 low-cost
homes planned for community members on a vacant
lot 2 km south of the informal settlement (named Joe
Slovo Park after the first ANC Housing Minister). At
the time of interviewing (late 1996) only a handful of
the new homes had been built but by mid-1998 all
of the homes were complete (and occupied) with an
additional 100 homes planned for development, mak-
ing Joe Slovo Park one of the low-cost housing suc-
cess stories of the province.
Fifty South African citizens from the community
were interviewed, in Xhosa or Afrikaans, using a
451
semi-structured survey. The interviewees were selec-
ted at random using aerial maps of the settlement and
a random selection process in each household. This
procedure provided a good balance of age, gender and
other core demographics. All 11 members and
employees of the Marconi Beam Development Trust
(the community-based agency responsible for coordi-
nating the housing project) were then interviewed –
all of whom lived in Marconi Beam.
For interviews with non-citizens – many of whom
were extremely reluctant at first to participate in the
research for fear of being exposed to immigration
authorities – it was necessary to develop a close rap-
port with several well-respected foreigners living in
the settlement in order to establish some confidence
and trust. Two were then trained to do the interviews
(with the assistance of translators where necessary).
Using this technique the entire foreign population in
Marconi Beam was interviewed – a total of 46 people.
It should be noted that all of these non-citizens
were men (as they were for the other community
studied). Although this gender bias reflects the nature
of cross-border migration into South Africa in gen-
eral, women are increasingly traveling to and working
in South Africa and are also in need of accommo-
dation (Dodson, 1998). This paper may therefore miss
some important gender dynamics with respect to
housing for foreign migrants.
The second set of interviews were done in Imizamo
Yethu (also known as Mizamoyethu, and commonly
referred to as Mandela Park; for an historical over-
view of Imizamo Yethu, see Oelofse and Dodson,
1997), a slightly larger informal settlement of
approximately 6000 people in the town of Hout Bay,
approximately 20 km from downtown Cape Town.
This community was chosen for the study because of
the large foreign population (variously estimated to
be somewhere between 500 and 700 people) and a
recent history of conflict in the settlement between
citizens and non-citizens. A fight between a foreigner
and citizen in early 1996 resulted in two people being
stabbed and precipitated a much larger confrontation
between about 1000 armed South African citizens
from the community and 500 foreigners (Meter,
1996). Two of the non-citizens were shot dead and
four others were badly injured in the altercation. Eight
to ten South African nationals were also injured.
There have been no further incidents of violence
between foreigners and citizens in Imizamo Yethu
since this incident, and relations between the two
groups appear to have improved considerably, but as
we shall see in this paper some tensions still exist.
This tension is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that
our research in the community had to be curtailed for
over a month after someone went to the police claim-
ing that our research assistant (a Namibian who had
been living in the community for many years) was
handing out applications for citizenship rather than
doing interviews. Once the police were satisfied that
the papers he was carrying were indeed only question-
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
Figure 1 The Cape Town Metropolitan Area in a regional context
naires for the research it was possible to continue with
the interviews but another migrant research assistant
had to be found and trained because the first person
was too nervous to continue. It was also necessary to
re-establish the confidence and trust of the migrant
community who had become understandably leery of
the whole process.
There is no existing housing project in Imizamo
Yethu, but there are ongoing discussions between the
civic leadership and the same NGO that is assisting
Marconi Beam with its housing development, and a
housing project will probably begin in that com-
munity in the near future. Imizamo Yethu has, how-
ever, been the site of substantial upgrading in the
recent past, and although it is still very much a “squat-
ter camp” in terms of the informal and temporary nat-
ure of the housing, there are curbed roads, flush
toilets, and electricity available to the majority of resi-
dents.
In terms of interviews, the same random selection
procedures as Marconi Beam were used to interview
50 South African citizens. The five members of the
civic leadership were interviewed separately, and
snowball sampling techniques were used to interview
43 of the non-citizens living in the community (all of
whom were men, once again).
452
The final set of interviews were conducted with 50
South African citizens chosen at random from the for-
mal township of Gugulethu, located in Cape Town
proper. Gugulethu is the second oldest township in
the city, established in the 1940s, and is home to
approximately 150 000 people (LGDB, 1995). This
township represents a much wider range of socio-
economic and housing conditions than the two infor-
mal settlements (eg large and small formal brick
homes, migrant hostels, shacks), and was therefore
chosen as a “control study” to look for any major
discrepancies between the attitudes of citizens in a
formal township and those in an informal settlement
(of which none were found). It was decided not to
interview non-citizens from this township, largely
because of the lack of any obvious foreigner “com-
munity” living there and the difficulties associated
with trying to establish a random selection of an
unknown population in such a large area.
Tables 1–3 provide a more detailed breakdown of
the demographic profile of the people interviewed.
Two points should be highlighted in particular. First,
it is important to note that non-citizens have been liv-
ing in the informal settlements almost as long as the
citizens, and therefore have a claim of sorts to be con-
sidered part of the community. In Marconi Beam, the
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
Table 1 Number of interviews conducted by place and gender
Citizens Civic leaders/employers Non-citizens Totals
No. of interviews in Marconi Beam 50 11 46 107
No. of interviews in Imizamo Yethu 50 5 43 98
No. of interviews in Gugulethu 50 – – 50
No. of women interviewed 70 3 – 73
No. of men interviewed 80 13 89 182
Total no. of interviews 150 16 89 255
Table 2 Key demographics from the surveys
Citizens Non-citizens
Average age 33 29
Gender
Male 54% 100%
Female 46% 0%
Race
African 99% 98%
Coloured 1% 2%
Where did you grow up?
Urban 37% 69%
Rural 63% 31%
First language
Xhosa 89% 0%
Afrikans 1% 0%
Zulu 2% 0%
Sotho/Twsana 7% 0%
Kinbundu 0% 30%
Lingala 0% 4%
Portuguese 0% 5%
Shona 0% 4%
Ovambo 0% 42%
Dfrafra 0% 2%
Hereo 0% 2%
Other 1% 11%
Average no. of years of education 7.5 9
Number of respondents with > 30% 43%
10 years education
Type of services
In-house water tap 24% 1%
Access to flush toilet 64% 28%
Pit latrine only 35% 71%
No toilet or bucket system 1% 1%
Electricity for lighting 29% 22%
Average no. of people in 4.1 3.5
household
Average no. of full dependents 2.6 2.8
Average no. of partial dependents 1.7 2
Are you a dependent
Yes 18% 20%
No 82% 80%
Percentage of foreigners with jobs n/a 69%
in home county before coming to
South Africa
Are you currently employed in
SA (full- or part-time)
Yes 81% 79%
No 19% 21%
Average personal monthly income
Marconi Beam and Imizamo R855 R1126
Yethru only
Gugulethru only R1191 n/a
All three communities R1183 R1126
453
Table 2 Continued
Citizens Non-citizens
Average household monthly
income
Marconi Beam and Imizamo R860 R1365
Yethru only
Gugulethru only R2500 n/a
All three communities R1330 R1365
Do you have any personal assets?
Yes 83% 71%
No 17% 29%
Average personal assets
Marconi Beam and Imizamo R575 R3751
Yethru only
Gugulethru only R9980 n/a
All three communities R3521 R3751
Adjusted overall average R848 R1425
Do you have a bank account?
Yes 57% 65%
No 43% 35%
Average savings in bank account
Marconi Beam and Imizamo R1650 R4467
Yethru only
Gugulethru only R3361 n/a
All three communities R2621 R4467
Adjusted overall average R1942 R2912
Note: “Adjusted averages” mean that values of R10 000 or greater
were removed from the calculation to provide a more realistic indi-
cation of the means.
median arrival date for non-citizens (ie the date on
which 50% of those interviewed had arrived in the
settlement) was February 1995 as opposed to January
1992 for citizens. This is a significant difference, to
be sure, but not as big a difference as one might
expect given the lack of participation in the housing
project on the part of non-citizens. Moreover, 30%
of the non-citizens interviewed have been living in
Marconi Beam since before August 1994 (the cut-off
date for being eligible for one of the new houses).
This is significantly lower than the 62% of citizens
who were living in the community at that point, but
it does mean that a large proportion of the foreign-
born residents of Marconi Beam have a technical right
to at least rent one of the new houses in Joe Slovo
Park. In Imizamo Yethu the difference in arrival dates
between citizens and non-citizens is even smaller,
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
with the median for citizens being June 1993 and the
median for non-citizens being October 1994.
Second, non-citizens living in the informal settle-
ments have significantly higher personal incomes,
personal assets, and bank accounts than their citizen
counterparts in the same settlements (32, 148 and
69% higher, respectively). Non-citizens from Marconi
Beam and Imizamo Yethu are also more likely to be
employed and have fewer dependents than their citi-
zen counterparts (in the informal settlements only),
and many have significant asset holdings in their
home country (one respondent indicated assets worth
R150 000; 1 Rand ⫽US$0.16 as at 30 July 1998).
It is important to note that income and asset hold-
ings for non-citizens in the informal settlements are
lower than those for citizens living in the formal
township of Gugulethu (and with average incomes of
only R1126/month, non-citizens are hardly living in
the lap of luxury). Nevertheless, the income differ-
ences between the informal residents do suggest a sig-
nificant gap in economic resources between citizens
and non-citizens in those two communities.
The fact that these case studies are all from the
Cape Town area is also important insofar as Cape
Town is the furthest major city from South Africa’s
international borders and because it has its own pecul-
iar apartheid history as a “coloured preference” area.
It cannot be assumed, therefore, that these case stud-
ies are representative of the country as a whole when
it comes to peoples’ attitudes towards foreign
migrants and housing. Nevertheless, Cape Town has
increasingly become a major destination point for
people from all over the world (the Cape Town Refu-
gee Forum estimates that there are 10 000 refugees in
the city alone), and judging from the wide geographic
origins of the people interviewed for this research, the
city attracts Africans from all corners of the continent.
Who has the “right” to housing?
Constitutional questions
Perhaps the most fundamental point to make on the
question of access to new housing in South Africa by
non-citizens is that there is no clear government pol-
icy position on the issue. It is important, however, to
distinguish between the right to purchase a home in
South Africa and the right to access a housing sub-
sidy. In the former case, anyone is allowed to pur-
chase a home as long as they can finance it by private
means (ie cash or bank financing). For wealthy Euro-
peans, Asians, North Americans and a few wealthy
Africans, this right to purchase property has allowed
them to buy up relatively cheap luxury homes in the
country. But for the majority of migrants from other
parts of Africa, the purchase of a home in South
Africa – even the tiny “matchboxes” that make up
most of the new housing stock in the townships – is
well beyond their personal financial means and priv-
ate banks have been reluctant to loan to anyone in
454
Table 3 Migration histories and legal status of non-citizens inter-
viewed
Country of origin
Angola 37%
Ghana 2%
Zimbabwe 3%
Liberia 1%
Mozambique 5%
Zaire 2%
Co
ˆte D’Ivoire 1%
Namibia 49%
Rwanda 1%
Nigeria 1%
Reason for leaving home country
a
War/violence 52%
Political unrest 12%
No jobs at home 48%
Adventure 17%
Family in SA 11%
Search for a better life 1%
Schooling 1%
Average arrival date in SA (first time) March 1993
Average arrival date in SA (most recent arrival) April 1994
Mode of transport to get across border
Train 6%
Bus 9%
Car 14%
Truck 46%
Boat 18%
Plane 1%
On foot 6%
Port of entry used
b
Official border post 40%
Airport 1%
Docks 25%
“Illegal entry” 34%
Did you have official docunentation to enter the
country?
Yes 56%
No 44%
What kind of official documentation did you have
to enter SA?
Tourist visa 38%
Work permit 40%
ID/passport 34%
What kind of documentation do you have for SA
now?
Tourist visa 1%
Work permit 28%
Permanent residence 6%
Citizenship/SA ID 13%
Temporary residence 2%
Refugee permit 18%
Other passport/ID 8%
Do you have ID from your home country?
Yes 54%
No 49%
a
Some respondents gave more than one answer so totals add up to
more than 100%.
b
Some of dock entries were done illegally.
the townships, let alone foreigners with questionable
legal status.
The more relevant housing issue, then, for the
majority of non-citizens living in the country is access
to housing subsidies – a financing scheme introduced
by the national government in 1994 which provides
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
up to R17 250 as a one-off grant to purchase a new
home or to upgrade an existing dwelling (GSA,
1995b). There are a number of criteria which deter-
mine eligibility and the size of the subsidy (eg marital
status, income), but the most important criterion for
the discussion at hand is that subsidies are available
only to “legal RSA residents” (GSA, 1995b, Sec-
tion 5.3.1).
The Department of Housing in Pretoria interprets
“legal RSA resident” to refer strictly to South African
“citizens” and “permanent residents” – even though
this distinction is not stated anywhere in official hous-
ing subsidy documentation or in the Department’s
White Paper on Housing. According to one source,
there was a debate in the national Department of
Housing when the finance scheme was first being
developed about whether to give other “legal” resi-
dents in the country access to housing funds, but in
the end the current, more limited programme was
eventually adopted (Walsh, 1996).
More importantly, this limited interpretation of
“legal RSA resident” has not been tested against the
Constitution. Section 8.4 of the Bill of Rights grants
the “Right to Housing” to all “juristic persons”, but
does not distinguish between “person” and “citizen” –
a problem of definition that plagues the entire South
African Constitution and forms part of an ongoing
constitutional debate in the country. Until this ques-
tion of who the Bill of Rights applies to is resolved
by the Supreme Court, it will be up to individual
government departments and lower courts to deter-
mine their own criteria. In other words, there is no
consistent interpretation of what a “juristic person” is
in South Africa at the present time, and it is unclear
when (and if) this issue will be resolved.
To make matters more confusing, South Africa is a
member of the United Nations Conference on Human
Settlements and a signatory to the Habitat Agenda
signed in Istanbul in June 1996. In signing the Habitat
Agenda, the South African government committed
itself to the “goal of improving living and working
conditions on an equitable and sustainable basis, so
that everyone will have adequate shelter that is heal-
thy, safe, secure, accessible and affordable and that
includes basic services, facilities and amenities…in a
manner fully consistent with human rights standards”.
Being “consistent with human rights standards”
further commits the South African government to the
“eradication of discrimination in access to shelter and
basic services, without distinction of any kind, such
as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or
other opinion, national or social origin, property,
birth or other status” (UNCHS, 1996, Chapter 3, Sec-
tions 39–40, emphasis added).
Although no one seriously expects the South
African government to provide housing to every per-
son who enters the country regardless of their legal
status or long term plans – as some recalcitrant mem-
ber countries at the Istanbul Conference insisted that
455
the “right to housing” clause might imply
5
– the word-
ing of the UN document does commit the Government
of South Africa to finding ways to ensure “equal
access to affordable, adequate housing for all persons
and their families” (UNCHS, 1996, Section 8).
Interpretations on the ground
This confusion over the right to housing and housing
subsidies is evident at the community level as well.
When asked whether they thought “non-South
Africans were eligible to buy a house in a new hous-
ing project”, only 12% of the South African citizens
interviewed correctly answered that “yes” they are eli-
gible (40% thought that they were “not eligible” and
48% were “unsure”). Civic leaders were more infor-
med on this point with half of the 16 people inter-
viewed answering the question correctly, but 8 of the
11 members and employees of the Marconi Beam
Development Trust – the group responsible for allo-
cating the new homes in Marconi Beam – incorrectly
stated that non-citizens are “not” allowed to buy a
house in South Africa, raising some troubling ques-
tions about whether access to the new houses in that
community is being handled fairly.
On the question of housing subsidies, there was
even more confusion and misinformation. When citi-
zens were asked whether “foreigners are eligible for
ahousing subsidy”, 48% of the respondents were
“unsure” and 40% said “no”. Of those that said “no”,
most simply argued that foreigners are “not citizens”
or that new houses are for “people from the com-
munity”. Very few respondents made the distinction
between foreigners with legal status and those without.
Civic leaders were somewhat more knowledgeable
on this issue of housing subsidies for non-citizens, but
they showed little interest in finding out how to assist
foreigners in this regard. In the case of Marconi
Beam, where the Development Trust has played a key
role in assisting citizens with the subsidy programme,
nothing has been done to inform or advise non-citi-
zens about possible financial assistance – even though
it is well known that non-citizens of various legal
standing are living in the community and in need of
better housing.
From the perspective of the non-citizens them-
selves the situation is not much different. When asked
whether they thought “foreigners are eligible to buy
a house in a new housing project”, only 20% correctly
said “yes” (30% said “no” and 50% were “unsure”).
The predominant reason cited for not being able to
purchase a home was citizenship, but as we know
from the discussion above, anyone is entitled to buy
a home in the country if they can finance it them-
selves. There is an additional restriction on buying
5
The United States was the main opponent to the “rights to hous-
ing” clause, objecting to its inclusion in the final preparatory meet-
ings in New York City in February of 1996 and then seriously
delaying proceedings at the actual conference itself in Istanbul
(Griffin and Lowe, 1996; Kakakhel, 1996).
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
one of the homes in the housing project in Marconi
Beam – one must be living in a shack that was regis-
tered with the Development Trust as of August,
1994 – but the majority of the non-citizens inter-
viewed were either living in the community at that
time and/or are now the “owners” of a shack that is
registered with the Development Trust.
6
When it came to the question of housing subsidies,
non-citizens were even more uncertain about their
status with 65% of the respondents saying they were
“unsure” if they were eligible, most of whom said that
they “do not know the criteria” for eligibility. As a
result, only 5% of the non-citizens interviewed have
actually applied for a housing subsidy, compared to
32% of the citizens. In Marconi Beam, the difference
is even more pronounced, with 76% of citizens having
applied for a subsidy and only 4% of non-citizens.
Attitudes towards non-citizens
Legal questions of access to housing aside, it is also
important to understand the general attitudes of South
African citizens towards non-citizens and how these
attitudes shape the ways in which foreigners are
able – or unable – to access housing in poor, urban
communities. Citizens were therefore asked a series
of questions about foreigners to which there are no
“right” or “wrong” answers – only opinions.
A 60/40 split?
One of the most striking features of the interviews
with citizens is what will be referred to here as a
“60/40 split” in attitudes towards non-citizens.
Although the actual statistics vary from question to
question (see examples below), and this ratio should
be seen more as an analytical device rather than a
precise definition of attitudes, there was nevertheless
a general trend across all three of the communities
studied for approximately 60% of the respondents to
respond negatively towards foreigners and approxi-
mately 40% to be either sympathetic, moderate or
indifferent/uncertain in their attitudes. There was also
a high degree of correlation amongst the different
questions – i.e. if people responded negatively
towards non-citizens in one question they tended to
respond negatively in all of the questions, and vice
versa.
This 60/40 split was most evident on the two ques-
6
The shack numbering system is somewhat problematic, however,
given the fact that numerous fires – some of which have destroyed
over a hundred shacks at a time – have resulted in the need to
renumber the shacks several times since August 1994. There have
also been different numbering systems devised by the NGO work-
ing in the community and by a team of researchers from the Univer-
sity of Cape Town, further contributing to the confusion over num-
ber assignments. Nevertheless, 30% of the non-citizens interviewed
were living in Marconi Beam prior to August 1994 and most of
the others are living in a shack that has a number assigned to it,
making them technically entitled to be considered for one of the
new homes.
456
tions directly related to whether non-citizens “should
be” eligible for housing benefits:
No Yes Unsure
Do you think 57% 35% 7%
foreigners should be
eligible to buy a house
in a housing project?
Do you think 61% 30% 9%
foreigners should be
eligible for a housing
subsidy?
For the most part, those who responded “no” simply
said that foreigners are “not citizens” and therefore
should not benefit from the housing programme
because “there won’t be enough for us”. Those who
responded “yes” were split between the economic
rationale of saying that non-citizens can have houses
“but only if they can afford to pay for it themselves”
and a more humanitarian response which said that
“they are also African”, “they helped us in the strug-
gle”, and “everyone needs access to a house”.
Other questions where citizens took a largely nega-
tive attitude towards non-citizens were as follows:
Which of the following statements do you think
best describes foreigners living in your community?
Foreigners are very lazy and 0%
unwilling to work
Foreigners do work, but they take 74%
jobs away from people in the
community
Foreigners work very hard and 24%
deserve the jobs they get
Foreigners create jobs
7
2%
What do you think the government should do about
foreigners living in your community?
Send them all back to their countries 68%
Send back only those who are not 2%
contributing to the economic well-
being of the community
Send back only those who have 0%
committed a serious criminal offence
7
It is interesting to note the very low percentage of people who
feel that non-citizens “create jobs” in South Africa. Recent research
on micro-enterprises in the Johannesburg area by Rogerson (1997)
has in fact indicated that non-citizens are an important part of job
creation in the inner-city areas and an important part of the econ-
omic and social regeneration of the city.
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
Send back only those without the 4%
permission of the SA government to
be here
Let them stay 26%
StronglyDislike Unsure Like Like
dislike very
much
Do you 23% 26% 13% 31% 7%
like
having
foreigners
living
in your
community?
No Yes Unsure
Do you think the 60% 35% 5%
government should
continue to allow
foreigners from
other African
countries into
South Africa?
It should be noted that these are not just speculative
answers from the respondents. Ninety-five percent of
the citizens interviewed said that they “know foreig-
ners living in their communities”, and 73% said that
they interact with non-citizens “often” or “very often”
(in Marconi Beam and Imizamo Yethu 100% of
respondents answered this way). In other words, the
interviewees, particularly in the informal settlements,
were not responding to some hypothetical situation or
unknown group of people; the presence of non-citi-
zens in their communities is a very real and very con-
crete phenomenon.
Equally important to note is that there was virtually
no difference in this 60/40 split in demographic terms.
Women were slightly more negative towards non-citi-
zens than men when asked whether they “like having
foreigners living in [their] community” (55% of
women said “dislike” or “strongly dislike” as opposed
to only 42% of men), and people who identified them-
selves as having grown up in a rural area were slightly
more negative in their response to the same question
than people from urban areas, but these differences
were relatively minor and did not apply to all of the
questions. Similarly, the civic leaders interviewed fell
into the same general 60/40 ratio as the rest of the
citizens, with a majority of those interviewed taking
a negative view towards non-citizens.
Overall, then, there were no really significant dif-
457
ferences in this 60/40 split across age, gender, edu-
cation, employment status, income levels or asset
holdings, making it virtually impossible to build a
demographic profile of who might be more negative
and who might be more positive towards foreign-born
residents. Even the intuitive assumption that the most
marginalized of citizens would be more negative
towards foreigners because they have the most to lose
in terms of competition for scarce material resources
does not bear itself out in the interviews. The group
that responded most positively towards non-citizens
actually had slightly lower incomes, lower assets,
more members per household, more dependents and
lower rates of employment (ie they werepoorer). This
apparent irony is all the more evident when one con-
siders that the women interviewed had significantly
lower rates of employment, lower incomes and asset
holdings than men, and were half as likely to have a
bank account, but held the same general views about
non-citizens as men.
It should also be noted that the same kind of attitu-
dinal trends have emerged in a national survey of
South African citizens that looked more generally at
attitudes towards foreigners from other parts of Africa
(Taylor et al., 1998). Analysis of this data suggests
two interesting trends: first, that the majority of South
Africans respond negatively to the presence of foreig-
ners in their country, but that 30–40% of respondents
respond positively or neutrally; and second, that black
South Africans (Africans in particular) are more sym-
pathetic to the basic housing and services needs of
foreigners than their white counterparts.
How negative is negative?
To the extent that there are a majority of people who
responded negatively towards non-citizens on issues
of access to housing, it is difficult to say how “deep”
this negativity is. Certainly there are tensions in each
of the communities between non-citizens and citizens
(Imizamo Yethu being the most dramatic case), and
certainly there were some extremely xenophobic com-
ments made about non-citizens during the interviews
(eg “you can’t trust them”, “they bring diseases to the
country”, “they are too dark”), but these prejudices
were not as prevalent as one might have expected
from anecdotal reports about attitudes towards foreig-
ners in the popular press in South Africa.
In fact, inflammatory comments about non-citizens
were very definitely in the minority. Most of the
reasons given for not wanting foreigners in the coun-
try, or for not wanting foreign-born Africans to have
access to housing, were couched in much more
rational terms – eg “there won’t be enough houses for
everyone”, “they are not citizens”, “they have not
lived here long enough”, and “we would not be given
houses in their country”.
There was also a remarkably high degree of agree-
ment in all three communities about access to other
basic services for non-citizens. When asked whether
they thought foreigners “should be eligible for basic
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
services like water, electricity and refuse removal”,
75% of respondents said “yes” – with the majority
of people arguing that “everyone needs these basic
services”. Only 21% of respondents said “no” while
4% said “unsure”. This overwhelmingly positive
response suggests that most residents in the communi-
ties studied are sympathetic to the position that non-
citizens find themselves with respect to poverty.
Moreover, it would appear that “public” goods like
water and electricity are perceived in a fundamentally
different way than “private” goods like housing and
there may need to be a different policy approach taken
with respect to these two different consumption aren-
as.
What non-citizens have to say
As noted at the outset, interviewing non-citizens in
the three communities was much more difficult than
interviewing citizens. Not only were many of the fore-
igners extremely apprehensive about being inter-
viewed because of their lack of legal status in the
country, many were also not proficient in any of the
major languages of the Cape Town area (Xhosa,
English and Afrikaans).
However, once a solid rapport had been developed
between ourselves, the foreign research assistants and
the foreign communities, the interviews went very
smoothly and the interviewees were remarkably can-
did in their responses, providing detailed information
on such sensitive issues as their legal status, their
incomes and assets, their personal experiences in
South Africa, and their plans for the future.
Positive experiences in South Africa
The most striking feature of the interviews with non-
citizens was that the overwhelming majority of
respondents have had very positive experiences in the
country and most are extremely optimistic about the
future. Even in Imizamo Yethu, with the unpleasant
episodes of violent conflict between citizens and non-
citizens still in recent memory, 98% of the respon-
dents said that they “like” or “strongly like” living in
South Africa, and 98% said they “like” or “strongly
like” living in Imizamo Yethu. Similar results were
found in Marconi Beam.
There was less agreement between the two informal
settlements when non-citizens were asked “How have
you been treated by people in your community” with
25% of respondents from Imizamo Yethu saying
“poorly” or “very poorly” and only 2% of respondents
from Marconi Beam answering in this way – but only
1% of the respondents went as far as to say that South
African citizens “do not like foreigners”, and 68% of
respondents said that the attitudes of South Africans
towards foreigners is “getting better” (20% said atti-
tudes are “the same”, 11% said unsure, and only 1%
said “getting worse”). In Imizamo Yethu, 86% said
that attitudes are “getting better”.
458
As with the citizen interviews, these “opinions”
were not based on mere speculation. All of the non-
citizens interviewed said they interact with citizens
on a regular basis and 93% said they interact “often”
or “very often” – with the most important venues for
interaction being sports (70% of respondents citing
this as an example), work (50%), shops (51%) and
shebeens (50%).
Further evidence of optimism amongst non-citizens
can be found in their overwhelmingly positive
response to questions about change in South Africa
and their prospects for the future. Interestingly, non-
citizens are slightly less optimistic than citizens about
the future but they are more approving of efforts to
upgrade urban areas and democratize the country:
Are you happy with Non-citizens Citizens
efforts to upgrade (%) (%)
this community?
Extremely unhappy 0 5
Somewhat unhappy 5 15
Unsure 14 10
Fairly happy 24 23
Very happy 57 46
Are you happy with
the RDP
8
?
Extremely unhappy 0 5
Somewhat unhappy 7 20
Unsure 19 14
Fairly happy 20 20
Very happy 54 41
Are you happy with
changes taking place
in SA overall?
Extremely unhappy 2 5
Somewhat unhappy 10 12
Unsure 5 9
Fairly happy 16 20
Very happy 67 54
Are you optimistic
about your/your
family’s future in
SA?
Very pessimistic 7 0
Somewhat 5 0
pessimistic
Unsure 6 14
Somewhat optimistic 20 15
Very optimistic 62 71
8
The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is the
name of the government’s major policy platform for poverty allevi-
ation and other post-apartheid reforms. Although this programme
has been superceded by other policy initiatives, the term “RDP”
continues to serve as proxy for all upgrading initiatives.
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
Ambiguity with respect to housing
It is really only on questions of housing that non-
citizens were apprehensive about their future in South
Africa. In Marconi Beam, 75% of the non-citizens
interviewed were “unsure” if they would be moving
into a house in the new housing development, despite
the fact that many of them are technically entitled to
purchase or rent one of the new homes by virtue of
their arrival date in the community, their “ownership”
of a shack with a number on it assigned by the Mar-
coni Beam Development Trust, or their status as a
permanent resident or citizen of South Africa.
So strong was this ambiguity over access to hous-
ing that 42% of these non-citizens replied “unsure”
when asked if foreigners “should be eligible for a
housing subsidy” and 32% responded “unsure” when
asked if foreigners “should be allowed to buy a house
in a new housing development”, despite the fact that
everyone interviewed expressed a keen desire to
improve their material living conditions. In other
words, all of the non-citizens in Marconi Beam want
to have a safe and secure place to live, and many are
entitled to move into Joe Slovo Park, but theyare very
confused and unsure about their status with respect to
housing in the country.
Non-citizens are also unsure about how they are
perceived by South Africans. When asked if they
thought whether “South African citizens would like
to see you get a house in a new housing develop-
ment”, non-citizens from both communities did not
really know how to respond, with 42% saying “some
would” and 42% saying “unsure”. Only 16%
responded “yes”. It is interesting to note, however,
that none of the non-citizens said “no” to the ques-
tion – suggesting that these non-citizens do not feel
completely alienated from their respective communi-
ties.
It should also be noted that 80% of the non-citizens
interviewed in Marconi Beam have never been to one
of the regularly held (and well attended) community
meetings for the new housing project in that settle-
ment. Of the 20% who have attended a meeting, only
two-thirds said that they have ever participated in
the discussions.
Future plans
For the most part, the non-citizens interviewed appear
to be taking a “wait and see” approach to housing in
South Africa. In Imizamo Yethu, 91% of respondents
said they would like to see a housing project in the
community and 63% said they would stay in the com-
munity if there were a housing project. Interestingly,
no one said that they plan to leave Imizamo Yethu;
they will either build a new shack in the community
(28%), stay as they are (7%), build a formal house
(42%), or wait for a housing subsidy (12%). The
additional 19% of respondents could not say what
their plans are.
In the case of Marconi Beam, where the current
459
informal settlement is scheduled to be leveled to make
way for an industrial site once the new housing devel-
opment is complete, non-citizens will have to move
to another part of the city if they do not get access
to one of the new homes. When asked what they
would they would do if this happened, these respon-
dents had very little in the way of concrete plans
beyond “finding some accommodation elsewhere”
9
.
Some of this uncertainty about future housing plans
can be attributed to the fact that 34% of respondents
said that they intend to return to their home countries
at some point and did not express a strong a desire
to build a permanent dwelling, but even the majority
of the 51% who intend to stay in South Africa for an
extended period of time are simply going to “build a
new shack”, “stay as is”, or are “unsure” about their
plans. Very few said that they intend to build a perma-
nent dwelling – despite the fact that 44% of respon-
dents have already applied for permanent residence in
the country.
In summary, then, a majority of the non-citizens
interviewed for this research would appear to have
long-term plans to stay in South Africa but very few
have any long-term plans for housing. This is not to
suggest that the majority of non-citizens living in SA
intend to stay in South Africa on a permanent basis –
other research would indicate that the majority of
non-citizens in South Africa are in fact in the country
on a temporary basis (Crush, 1997; McDonald et al.,
1998) – but these case studies do highlight the fact
that many of the non-South Africans living in the
country have no real hope or plans for housing in
the future.
Policy recommendations
It is not the intent of this paper to make specific rec-
ommendations on housing and immigration policy or
to adopt a particular policy position; there is much
more work to be done on this issue before specific
policy guidelines can be developed for consideration.
It is possible, however, to make some general obser-
vations and to highlight some key areas for policy
reform.
The need for a housing policy for non-citizens
The most important conclusion to be drawn from this
research is the need for a clear and unambiguous
housing policy for non-citizens living in South Africa.
The definition of a “juristic person” must be openly
defined in Housing Department literature and must be
consistent with the Bill of Rights and other national
and international commitments of the South African
9
It is also interesting to note that 57% of the non-citizens inter-
viewed in Marconi Beam said that they had South African partners
who were eligible for one of the new houses in Joe Slovo Park
and 53% have partners who are eligible for a housing subsidy.
Many of these men also indicated that they hoped to move with
their partners to one of the new homes.
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
government. Moreover, these policy guidelines need
to be well advertised at all levels of government. It
is one thing to have a policy in place at a national
level; it is quite another to have it understood and
implemented at a local level.
Ultimately, these policy changes will require some
degree of collaboration between the Department of
Home Affairs, the Housing Department, and the
Supreme Court, making the prospect of far-reaching
policy changes in the near future unlikely. In the
interim, the Housing Department can clarify its own
position on access to housing for those who do not
have citizenship or permanent residency and/or
initiate a policy debate on the issue.
The extent to which the South African public is
ready for a housing policy that defines the status of
non-citizens with respect to housing is difficult to say
for sure, but the results of these interviews would sug-
gest that the reaction of the urban poor to foreigners
is not as uniformly negative or as xenophobic as one
might suspect from anecdotal reports in the popular
press in South Africa.
If anyone has a right to be anxious about the pres-
ence of foreigners in South Africa it is the urban poor.
They have the most to lose – in material terms – from
the increased competition for scarce urban resources
and are understandably concerned about what this
increased foreign presence means for their own sur-
vival. It is all the more impressive, therefore, how
little outright hostility was evident in the interviews
and how many of the citizens interviewed were actu-
ally accepting of the non-citizens living in their com-
munities and willing to share in the very limited gains
available to them in the new South Africa. One would
not want to conclude from these three case studies
that these sentiments are true of all informal settle-
ments and townships in the country, but they certainly
challenge the popularly-held notion that xenophobia
is rampant amongst all South Africans and that citi-
zens are unwilling to tolerate any form of liberaliz-
ation of immigration (and housing) policies.
The need for a housing finance scheme for non-
citizens
The Government of South Africa must also decide
whether it wants to financially assist non-citizens with
the purchase of a home. As noted earlier, giving
someone the “right” to buy a home is often not
enough. It is access to sufficient finances that is the
biggest housing concern for most people in South
Africa – citizens and non-citizens alike.
Given the extremely tight fiscal climate in South
Africa it is very unlikely that significant amounts of
government funds are going to be made available for
housing subsidies for non-citizens when it is already
difficult to provide an acceptable level of publically
financed housing subsidies to South African citizens.
It may be possible, however, to develop alternative
financing schemes which combine public and private
financing options in order to assist those non-citizens
460
who are not eligible for current housing grants.
Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to dis-
cuss what these finance schemes might look like,
there may be lessons to be learned from public/private
financing options offered in other countries for immi-
grants who are buying homes (eg Fannie Mae Foun-
dation, 1996a, b).
Part of the problem with a policy decision of this
nature is the lack of data on (im)migration to South
African cities. More information is needed on the
number of (im)migrants in urban areas, their legal
status and their plans with respect to housing if policy
makers are going to be able to make rational decisions
on housing finance schemes. In the interim, it is
important not to blindly accept the rhetoric that non-
citizens are merely a financial burden on the state or
that the government has no role in financially assist-
ing non-citizens with housing. As recent research in
the United States has demonstrated, foreign-born resi-
dents can play an extremely important role in the
housing market and can, in the medium to long run,
contribute enormously to the economy of their host
country via housing consumption and taxation (Pitkin
et al., 1997).
Local politics and the problem of “gatekeeping”
The third major conclusion to be drawn from these
case studies is that immigration policy has a local
dimension and must be understood – and monitored –
at the community level. This is particularly true of
housing and other basic municipal services where
local governments and other local players play an
extremely important role in deciding how and where
these urban resources will be allocated in the new
South Africa (GSA, 1993). Provincial governments
play a key role by way of the Provincial Housing
Boards (which make final decisions about granting
housing subsidies), but it is at the community level
and the municipal level that most housing and service
projects are initiated and implemented. Hence, the
focus in this research on community level actors.
The point being made here is a simple one: Local
governments and community representatives can act
as “gatekeepers” of a sort when it comes to housing
developments and they may deny non-citizens access
to housing and other basic services despite policies at
a national level. This kind of gatekeeping role is not
restricted to housing, nor is it unique to South African
politics (Daly, 1996), but it does illustrate how poli-
tics at the local level can undermine policy initiatives
at the national level – both in terms of housing and
immigration reform.
In the cases of Marconi Beam and Imizamo Yethu,
civic leaders were slightly more liberal in their atti-
tudes towards foreigners than their compatriots, but
there were still a significant number of civic leaders
who did not think that foreigners should have access
to housing and there was surprisingly little under-
standing of the “rights” of foreign-born residents with
respect to housing. This is not to suggest that these
Hear no housing, see no housing: D A McDonald
community leaders would intentionally deny access
to housing and other services for non-citizens – these
same people eagerly supported our research and
assisted with our access to foreigners in the com-
munity, after all – but it does highlight the need to
better understand the local dynamics of housing deliv-
ery and the important influence of local politics on
the daily lives of non-South Africans living in the
country.
One would also want to have a better understanding
of the role that municipal bureaucrats and local
government politicians play in determining access to
housing and municipal services for non-citizens. Most
of the former are apartheid-era civil servants who
were guaranteed their jobs for the duration of the
post-apartheid transition period, while the latter are a
mixed bag of new and old politicians still battling
over the redistribution of municipal resources, making
it unlikely that either group would take a particularly
proactive role in tackling this issue of access to hous-
ing and services for non-citizens, but they will never-
theless continue to have an important hand in
determining how and if resources are made available
at the local level.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important that the South African
government review its housing policies with respect
to non-citizens – particularly those non-citizens from
other parts of Africa. The South African government
has committed itself in principle to a policy of basic
human rights (of which adequate shelter is a funda-
mental part) and there would be appear to be some
degree of acceptance on the part of South African
informal and township residents to acknowledge the
rights of non-citizens in this regard.
This is not to suggest that developing a housing
policy for immigrants and migrants will be a smooth
or non-controversial process; far from it. Policy mak-
ers will need to fully understand the fiscal impli-
cations of any new housing strategy and the impact
it could have on access to housing for South African
citizens. One must also be cognizant of the potential
for xenophobic and/or anti-foreigner sentiment to
manipulate policy development and public response.
Nevertheless, the issue of housing for non-citizens
cannot be wished away. If the South African govern-
ment is serious about basic human rights for all “per-
sons”, and remains committed to immigration policy
reform, then it is incumbent to opena dialogue on this
controversial, yet extremely important, policy topic.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Sandile
Schalk, the primary research assistant on this project,
as well as the members of the migrant communities
who facilitated (and in many cases conducted) inter-
461
views with fellow non-citizens. The assistance of the
Marconi Beam Development Trust and the Imizamo
Yethu Civic Organization are also acknowledged.
Comments on an earlier draft of this paper by Jona-
than Crush, Gerry Daly, Belinda Dodson, Beate
Lohnert and an anonymous reviewer were extremely
useful. The research was funded by the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA). The
paper is dedicated to the memory of Mark “Rasta”
Kweku.
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