GOOD Statement by Suzette Little, GOOD Deputy Secretary-General & City of Cape Town Caucus Chairperson:
The crisis of maintenance in Cape Town’s rundown rental stock and hostels is not a result of budgetary constraints, it’s the product of deliberate political neglect. This is not about a lack of funds. It’s about a lack of political will.
According to an article published by Ground Up, the City of Cape Town has a plan to fix the derelict hostels but the Western Cape government says it would cost more money to upgrade these hostels than to provide serviced emergency structures elsewhere.
The City of Cape Town has repeatedly demonstrated that it can find money when it wants to. The Safety and Security budget has ballooned (a staggering R7 billion in the proposed 2025 budget), billions redirected to expanding law enforcement and mass surveillance infrastructure. Yet when it comes to fixing leaking roofs, rewiring fire-prone hostels, or providing residents with working toilets and warm water, the City suddenly becomes helpless, claiming it needs “national intervention.”
These hostels were not forgotten. They were abandoned, by design, by policy, and by a political agenda that continues to preserve apartheid spatial patterns. The City has treated these spaces not as homes, but as burdens. Leaving black and coloured working-class communities to live in indignity while prioritising the interests of wealthy property owners.
This was a moment for leadership. The City could have taken ownership of the problem and of the land. It could have explored expropriation without compensation especially for abandoned or mismanaged land and buildings, to reinvest in rebuilding not just infrastructure, but the community. But the DA does not govern with a transformative mandate, they govern to preserve the status quo.
Since 2018, we’ve seen the steady erosion of Cape Town’s inner-city housing programs and the quiet dismantling of social development initiatives that once sought to repair the injustices of apartheid. The Mayor cannot continue to govern like a commentator. He must govern like someone responsible for the lives of real people.
As the rates and tariff hikes loom, we ask why this administration is always ready to raise our costs, but never ready to raise the standard of living. Why is public land being sold off while people remain trapped in 60-year-old hostels with no dignity, no safety, and no future?
Dignity is not charity. Housing is not a luxury. This is a matter of justice.
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