The City of Cape Town’s Community Residential Units (CRUs) are an important part of the City’s affordable accommodation in the metro. The CRUs provide homes to more than 228 000 residents. A year ago, the City, in collaboration with the National Housing Finance Corporation undertook a new R150 million rental stock repair initiative that is making steady progress with small-contractors and improving the living conditions of our tenants at the heart of this programme.

The small-contractor repair and maintenance initiative has made great strides despite some challenges this year, such as the impact of Covid-19 on work. The initiative is not only aimed at addressing the service request backlogs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, but is providing work opportunities to local contractors and suppliers. Today, 13 October 2021, Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi, City Public Housing officials, representatives of the National Housing Finance Corporation and small and medium-size contractors who are carrying out the work, met to look at the successes and improvements of the initiative.

‘Over the recent months, City staff and the small and medium-size contractors have been hard at work at our affordable rental units across the city.

‘The work is ongoing and we are looking at ways to improve on our delivery where it is required. All City-owned CRUs undergo regular upgrades and maintenance with the limited budget that the City has, and with this new initiative, we plan to reach many more units for their required repair and maintenance work as quickly as possible. The programme primarily focuses on fixing affordable housing units that have been affected by fire. General maintenance work and repairs, largely because of vandalism, are also being done.

‘We thank City staff and contractors for their dedication to this initiative and we look forward to making more progress over the coming months. The City reminds residents that we are dependent on rental income to carry out our repair and maintenance programmes, and it is therefore important for residents to make their monthly rental payments. The City encourages all of our tenants to make regular payments so that we can roll out more and more of these projects. Tenants may also approach their nearest City customer office to see if they qualify for the City’s R4,1 billion debt write-off incentive of historic debt or for indigent support and to make a payment arrangement,’ said Councillor Booi.

By far the most service requests are vandalism-related

The City’s Public Housing Department has spent more than R24 million since June 2019 in vandalism-related repair work at its CRUs. This severely drains the maintenance budget. These maintenance costs are one of the biggest reasons why normal maintenance is often delayed at these units.

Source: City Of Cape Town