DELIVERING ON THE RIGHT TO HOUSING HAS BEEN PAINFULLY SLOW

IN THE anguish that categorised the July 2021 unrest, there were also voices of reflection.

- PREVIN VEDAN

Many citizens recognised that the true divide fueling the unrest was not simply race, but the shared desperation of poverty.

Black, Coloured, Indian and White small business owners alike, saw their shops ransacked, by people of all races, who had been pushed to the margins economically.

Years of unaddressed inequality, unemployment above 30% and the pandemic’s hardships fed the explosion.

South Africa learned that genuine reconciliation demands more than repealing racist laws, it requires uprooting the structural inequities those laws left behind, especially in housing and land.

The promise of 1994 remains unfulfilled so long as a person's prospects in life are dictated by whether they grow up in a leafy suburb or a corrugat-ed-iron shack.

And yet, even as unrest laid bare the fragility of our social fabric, South Africa's Constitution still stands as a beacon of hope - at least in principle.

The Constitution is one of the first in the world to enshrine socio-economic rights, including housing.

Section 26 of the Bill of Rights proclaims: “Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing”.

Importantly, it also obliges the state to take “reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right”.

In plain terms, housing is not just a policy goal but a constitutional duty, and the government must show it is moving forward - step by step, year by year - to extend housing to all.