Cape Town - The group of around 100 people evicted from the Three Anchor Bay Tennis Club on Wednesday said they would now move from squatting in Green Point to other areas in the metro.
While the City previously said the majority of the unlawful occupants had indicated a willingness to take up various offers of shelter and social assistance, this was not the case when the Cape Argus visited the site yesterday.
The eviction follows a Western Cape High Court order handed down in December, which ordered the occupants to vacate the grassy patch next to the tennis courts by January 31.
Yesterday, law enforcement and police facilitated their eviction.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said last week: “The majority of the remaining occupants have accepted either an offer of dignified transitional shelter, or of emergency housing kits to be erected on land where the necessary permission is in place from the landowner. It is important to note that offers of shelter still stand at all times during this process.”
Nobuntu Gcumka, 37, said she understood why “white people did not want them in the area any longer”.
She said she had no other choice but to now find a place to squat in the townships.
“I agreed to the option of taking building material and placing it at my home in Gugulethu. I ran away from the township and now I am expected to go back there. I will take it, leave it there and then come back to Sea Point.
“I would rather sleep on the street because at home I won’t have a bed to sleep in and food. Here I get food at the garage, they give me a loaf of bread every day. I also get free clothes, which I end up selling.
“It would be better if the City gave us the material to use on the same ground or somewhere close to Sea Point and not in the township.
“I blame ourselves for the eviction, most of us are on drugs and we don’t sleep, we are showing the white people that we don’t respect them, so we deserve what is happening to us. We lost our minds and I have addressed the behavioural problem and said one day we are going to be evicted.”
She said they would play music and have parties regularly.
“We’d end up robbing people who walked past here because we’re not getting jobs, we are in Sea Point to get money and some of us end up turning to crime. Even though we are homeless we refuse to go to the shelter because we have to share rooms and we can’t share with our partners. People are sick in those shelters.”
Michael Stuurman, 52, said he had been staying at the tennis court for two years.
“I guess they are removing us now because it’s election time. We said we don’t want to move, we come from bad living conditions. I’m from Bonteheuwel, and I was in and out of prison and when I moved to the Atlantic Seaboard, things changed.
“It was peaceful, safe, there was no crime, no murders, and even where we were staying, we were a community at Tent City. We wanted to stay here and clean the place up and make it look good.”
Anthony Loubser, managing director of Empext (Pty) Ltd, the company that holds the lease for the land, said the group first started setting up tents around January 2020, before Empext acquired the lease.
“We tried to assist the community with funding alternative accommodation, which included arranging visits to sites, providing accommodation, setting up a leadership group within the community for better liaison and inviting the Development Action Group to assist with addressing the needs of the community. We also facilitated food and clothes from various entities,” he told Cape Argus last week.
“We also recognise that the City and other stakeholders are endeavouring to provide the best alternatives with limited resources.
“We are hopeful that the solutions that are provided will enable this community to advance their aspirations as people.”
Last Wednesday, Hill-Lewis said that based on recent engagements conducted by social development officials, many had opted for transitional accommodation.
“It is vital that public places must be open and available for all. No person has the right to reserve a public space as exclusively theirs, while indefinitely refusing all offers of shelter and social assistance.”