Four years ago, 153 housing beneficiaries rejoiced when then-mayor Patricia de Lille handed over the keys to their Hazendal RDP houses to them.
Today, most of the beneficiaries are complaining that the houses are “falling apart”.
An angry Nicolette Coetzee, 55, tells the Daily Voice the roof tiles are breaking, causing leaks and the houses flood when it rains.
“I tell you now if we were to drill the foundation here the house would collapse because it was so badly built,” she says.
“We have cracked houses, to our knowledge the roof has a 10-year guarantee.
“How is it possible that barely five years after moving in we are experiencing problems?”
From the outside, the houses have bold and colourful paintwork.
But it’s a different story inside.
Inside the homes, which Nicolette showed the Daily Voice, the walls were wet, roof tiles had fallen in and the roofs were leaking.
“We waited for 25 to 30 years to be moved here and people who moved here are mostly the elderly. This is like a retirement village,” says Nicolette, adding that no one has money to repair their broken homes.
Resident Celia Davids says they have reported the damage to the municipality, but they have not received any assistance.
“We are expected to use our own money to fix a mess that was left by a construction company hired by the municipality,” she says.
“We cannot insure the houses because we do not have title deeds. We were robbed, these are not proper houses.”
Local Ward Councillor Rashid Adams says the City of Cape Town is not obligated to fix the houses.
“Those houses were affordable housing schemes when they were handed over,” he says.
“People were given three months to lodge snags about them.
“The City does not have a real obligation to fix them and we encouraged residents to take up insurance if they could afford it.”
He adds: “Ownership of the houses has been registered and some houses received their title deeds. Of course now there will be a delay since we are under lockdown.”
In response to a Daily Voice query, the City asked for the ID numbers of the beneficiaries affected and said they are looking into the matter.