GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General
28 April 2025
*Note to editors: Video, audio and images available
In honour of Freedom Day, GOOD, joined by Rise Mzansi, walked in solidarity from the long-vacant Pine Road site to the Pickwick Transitional Housing facility. Freedom Day marks the historic achievement of our constitutional rights, including the right to access adequate housing and to realise dignified housing progressively. Together, we used Freedom Day to highlight the ongoing housing injustice in Cape Town.
The City of Cape Town has failed to uphold its promise to the former residents of Pine Road. For over six years, families have been living in what was meant to be temporary accommodation at Pickwick Street. These residents were displaced from Pine Road, where they had lived peacefully for more than two decades, to make way for a promised social housing development that has yet to materialise. More than a decade after the project was awarded to a social housing provider, not a single brick has been laid. Meanwhile, the families continue to live in hostel-like conditions, worse than those they were forced to leave behind.
This is not an isolated case. It echoes the story of Blikkiesdorp, where residents were also relocated under the promise of temporary housing. A “temporary” reality that has persisted for nearly 20 years.
The City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government continue to release land without any real plans or timelines to develop housing, betraying the public trust and constitutional commitments.
What we are witnessing is a pattern of so-called transitional housing becoming de facto permanent settlements, with no clear path to dignity or restitution.
GOOD calls on the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government to immediately provide clear, transparent plans for housing development on Pine Road and all other “released” land and to treat the residents of transitional housing projects with the dignity they deserve.
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