WRITE AN EMAIL TO DEMAND HABITABLE HOUSING FOR RESIDENTS OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Minister

Thembisile

Simelane

South African Government

Dear Minister Simelane,

In your 2026/27 Budget Vote speech last month, you said: "housing is not merely a shelter. It is about restoring dignity, hope, and security”. You said it with conviction and we believe you meant it.

I am writing to ask you to prove it for the over five million people  living in informal settlements in South Africa.
 
Earlier this year, 26 informal settlements in Cape Town were submerged and over 41,000 residents were displaced by devastating floods. As the wet season approaches again, residents of informal settlements fear the same cycle of destruction is about to repeat.
 
This fear is fueled by the government's failure to deliver on the right to have access to adequate housing. International and domestic human rights law is clear: adequate housing must protect its inhabitants from rain, damp, cold, and structural hazards - this is the habitability standard, and it is not being met. For millions of people living in informal settlements, every rainy season brings the same devastation: damaged furniture, ruined food stocks, destroyed clothes, and for some, the loss of life.
 
As one resident of Barcelona informal settlement in Cape Town put it, flooding has become the norm. People are no longer just worried about their homes - they are worried about their lives.
 
This is not acceptable. Habitability is not a luxury. It is a right.
 
I urge you to:
 
1. Ensure that all plans for upgrading informal settlements are carried out urgently and in full compliance with human rights standards, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction requirements.
2. Reverse the downward trend in housing provision and significantly increase housing options with the aim of ending the housing backlog.
3. Review with the aim to revise the ZAR 3,500 income threshold set in 2008 under the Housing Subsidy Scheme to reflect inflation, so that people who need fully subsidised housing can access it.
4. Halt the weakening of protections against forced evictions in the proposed Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE Act) amendments.
5. Support provincial and local governments to integrate informal settlements into spatial planning frameworks, actively working to dismantle the apartheid-era geography of housing segregation.
6. Adequately resource grants to local governments to carry out informal settlement upgrading in line with national and international human rights standards.

Residents of informal settlements deserve homes that protect them - not homes that flood them. I call on your department to act with the urgency this crisis demands.
 
Yours sincerely,
An Amnesty International South Africa Supporter

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