GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
13 April 2026
Over the past 20 years, the City of Cape Town’s housing delivery has steadily declined from an average of about 9,000 units to approximately 5,000 per year, while the housing backlog has surged to roughly 600,000 units.
These disgraceful numbers, in a City that describes itself as better run than any other South African city, reflect a ticking time bomb of unsustainable inequality.
Numbers do not lie. We asked Western Cape MEC for Infrastructure, Tertuis Simmers, for a breakdown of annual subsidised housing delivery in Cape Town since 2006, when the DA ascended to power in the City, and compared these figures to the City’s delivery record between 1995 and 2006.
The first post-democracy housing project in Cape Town was completed in Khayelitsha in early 1995. The subsequent 11 years saw the delivery of 99,279 RDP homes in Cape Town.
According to Simmers, it has taken 20 years to double that number. Only 102,791 additional homes have been delivered over the past two decades, at an average of 5,100 per year. This rate is declining annually, while the population increases through internal migration by approximately 15,000 people per year.
Property in Cape Town is the most expensive in the country and is rapidly increasing rapidly. According to the City of Cape Town’s own 2024 Household Survey, only 6.5% of citizens earn above R51,201 per month.
However, the average listing price for a one-bedroom housing unit in the City reached R2.2m in 2025, which requires a monthly income of approximately R72,000 to afford.
What this means is that Cape Town’s housing crisis is being solved neither by the City nor the Province. Furthermore, it cannot be solved by the overwhelming majority of people needing homes due to extreme unaffordability.
Without a strategy to address the issue, the conditions of spatial injustice, which give rise to gangsterism and other forms of anti-social behaviour, will persist indefinitely. This amounts to a total political failure.
The realities raise serious questions about the integrity of the DA’s repeated boasting regarding the number of homes it has delivered in Cape Town. The simple truth is that housing delivery during the period of DA governance has been in a state of decline.
Housing is not a discretionary service; it is a constitutional right and a cornerstone of dignity, economic participation, and social stability. When delivery slows in the face of increasing need, it reflects a failure of political will, planning, and prioritisation.
The consequences are visible across Cape Town: the expansion of informal settlements, deepening spatial inequality, and thousands of families left waiting- often for decades- for a place to call home. The promise of post-apartheid spatial justice is being undermined by a system that is failing to keep pace with the realities people face.
If we are serious about addressing inherited abnormalities, restoring dignity, and building an inclusive city, housing delivery must be treated with the urgency it demands.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za