A disabled woman fears she will be robbed by skollies hanging out near her tiny shack on the edge of Grabouw.
Maria Adendorf, 52, shares the leaking one-room hokkie on an open field opposite Beverly Hills in Grabouw with her 16-year-old grandson.
She was left disabled after a stroke, and life has become even tougher for the ouma who has no electricity, running water or a toilet.
“I’m scared the skollies will steal what little I have left. And if they decide to hurt me I can’t even run away from them,” she says despondently.
Maria says she has been on the housing waiting list since 2006.
Nearby lives 77-year-old Mieta Afrika, opgeprop in a three-roomed Wendy house with her grandson, his wife and their four kids, of whom one is mentally disabled.
Mieta claims a municipal official promised last year that she would be moved into a house, after she applied for a house 15 years ago.
“I am waiting patiently. I hoped I’d get a house before the really cold months arrived. When it was so cold last week I thought I would freeze to death in our Wendy (house),” says the granny.
Gorden Pedro of Grabouw Civic Organisation says last year, during a meeting with Belinda Swartland, the director of Theewaterskloof Municipality’s Housing Department, Swartland said plans would be made to accommodate Mieta in Rooidakke.
“Earlier this year we took ouma Mieta to the municipality where she filled in an application for a subsidy but to date nothing has happened,” adds Grabouw Civic chairperson Margaret Le Roux.
Swartland referred all enquiries to the Theewtaerskloof Municipality spokesperson Hugo Geldenhuys.
According to Geldenhuys the municipality is currently busy verifying and updating its housing waiting list.
“We need to update the databasis because people on the list move away or pass away and new names are added to the list,” he explains.
Geldenhuys confirmed that people with disabilities and the elderly get preference when houses are allocated.