Housing location and mobility: The impacts on livelihood strategies of the relocated communities in Braamfischerville

• Main Author: Makaya, Lindiwe Patricia
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/4686

ABSTRACT Peripherisation of new low-income housing developments is steadily continuing in South Africa. The major reason for this is limited budget of the government housing subsidy which does not cover the costs of land in appropriate locations. For this reason, finding well located parcels of land for new low income housing developments seems to be a problem. As a result the new low-income housing projects continue to be developed at the outskirts of the city where there are no services and far from economic activities. The motivation for undertaking the study was due to realisation that it is not taken into consideration that beneficiaries of these housing projects engage in the form of relocations from previous places as such there could be disruptions on their livelihoods as a result of moving to locations which are assumed to be far from economic opportunities. The aim of the research was to examine how housing location and mobility impact or have impacted on the livelihoods of relocated people in Braamfischerville. The focus has been on the two groups of relocatees. The first category was that of individuals who experienced displacement mainly as a result of being evicted from their places due to an urban renewal project that was about to take place in Alexandra, which in away was involuntary. The second type of people is those who changed their residence and resettled in Braamfischerville as a response to their housing needs and was out of free will. Findings have shown that the impacts were not as severe as it was thought as people have been able to adapt to different coping strategies in order to restore their livelihoods in spite of location and transport being prominent and affecting the way people would make a living. Conclusions were drawn based on the fact that the location of Braamfischerville is not so well relative to places of origin but there is hope that at a later stage services and amenities will be available and as the city grows businesses will decentralise thus giving opportunities to the people who are now at the peripheries.