Housing Room

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The week Irene Grootboom died, we were all very busy obsessing about yet another court appearance by Jacob Zuma. She died homeless and penniless, not yet 50 years old, in the same week that robbers broke into the garage of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema’s upmarket home in Sandton and stole stuff from his C-Class Mercedes.

The ANC Youth League did not have time to issue a statement about the death of Irene Grootboom. They did have time to pontificate on the break-in, but who cares about a homeless and destitute woman when there is a man of dubious ethical standards to be defended?

This juxtaposition sums up much of what is wrong in South Africa, with the ANC and the debate about Zuma. Irene Grootboom made history when the Constitutional Court (those pesky counter-revolutionaries) delivered judgment in a groundbreaking case that carried her name, giving some content to the right of access to housing guaranteed in Article 26 of our Constitution.

Eight years ago the Constitutional Court ruled in Grootboom’s favour, saying that she and others living in an informal settlement in Wallacedene, Cape Town, had the right to demand that the state act reasonably to provide access to housing to all South Africans by devising and implementing a housing policy that did not neglect its most impoverished and vulnerable citizens.
Because the state’s housing policy did not cater at all for homeless people – those in urgent need – the Court declared the state’s housing policy to be unreasonable and thus invalid.

But because it was careful to respect the separation of powers, and fearing that it did not have the institutional competence to dictate to the state exactly how it had to act to provide South Africans with better access to housing, the Constitutional Court found that Grootboom could not demand a house from the state. She could only demand that the state act reasonably to implement a housing policy.

Irene Grootboom was a true revolutionary. She put her trust in the law, our courts and in politicians to help her to gain access to a house. But true revolutionaries hardly ever live happily ever after. Unlike the fake revolutionaries who steal our money and spew populist platitudes masquerading as concern for the people, true revolutionaries often die young, penniless and homeless.

As did Irene Grootboom.

Article from “Noseweek”