The human face of SA's housing crisis

I COME to you not from behind a desk, but from the front lines of lived experience.

- PREVIN VEDAN

In 2022, violence shattered the rhythm of my life, leaving me physically wounded - and yet strangely more awake than I had ever been. I learnt what it meant to rebuild not just a body, but a spirit. And in that painful rebuilding, I rediscovered my purpose - to fight for those whose struggles are too often left unseen.

I have walked these streets. I have argued in our courts. I have buried the victims of neglect. I never abandoned the struggle - I simply needed time to find the right words. Now, I have written them.

For millions of South Africans, home is more than brick and mortar. It is the foundation of safety, identity and dignity. It is the place where a child first learns to dream and a mother finally exhales after a long day. It is the right enshrined in our Constitution: “Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing.”

Yet in the daily life of our nation, that right remains a promise deferred.

Growing up in Shallcross, Durban - and now adjusting to life with a disability - I have seen how “home” can be both sanctuary and battlefield. When you rely on grants set far below the poverty line, and you face the silent stigma of disability inside your own four walls, your home becomes more than shelter - it becomes your last line of dignity against a world too quick to turn away. And when even that is taken from you, you are not just homeless. You are unseen.

Across our cities - in Durban, in Johannesburg, in Cape Town - tens of thousands sleep rough each night.

Their bodies are exposed to cold rains, their souls battered by the indifference of passers-by. Their suffering is not random. It is stitched together with poverty, with disability, with untreated trauma.

Surveys in the Covid-19 era showed us the stark truth, over half of homeless shelter residents suffered anxiety; a third battled severe psychiatric symptoms.