One Woman's Desperate Fight Against Cape Town's Crushing Housing Shortage Exposed

Ursula Felkers, a resident of Blikkiesdorp, a settlement on the outskirts of Cape Town, poses for a portrait in her house on August 19, 2024. — AFP

CAPE TOWN: Ursula Felkers moved to ‘Tin Can Town’ in 2007 after being evicted from an apartment near the centre of Cape Town.

Back then, she had thought that she would be there temporarily, hoping to save enough money to move to a better place, but the years went by and Felkers remains stuck in the informal housing area known as Blikkiesdorp.

Blikkiesdorp, which means 'Tin Can Town' in Afrikaans, is a community built from rows of rectangular-shaped one-room houses which are typically made of metal.

A large number of desperate residents who cannot afford better housing are getting squeezed in these types of tight spaces because of the severe lack of proper housing in Cape Town.

Felkers, 57, currently works multiple jobs in her area to support her family, and she nows lives with her four grandchildren in a tiny 'Tin Can Home'. She tried to highlight the desperate situation her family is facing and said, 'the kids cannot find jobs, and my daughter moved in with us because she also lost her job.' Felkers' daughter also moved to the home she shares with her four children after her husband died.

Blikkiesdorp, being one of the 218 informal settlements in the Cape Town area, has no water or proper toilet facilities and is plagued by floods during the rainy season.

The African National Congress administration said they would do something about the number of informal settlements in Cape Town, but it seems like not much progress has been made.

Felkers waits in hope that her name would soon be called from the Cape Town housing waiting list, the housing authority issued a call for applicants six years ago. More than nine thousand applicants remain on that Cape Town housing waiting list.

With time passing by and the crisis in housing being further strained by Cape Town's high crime rate and significant poverty levels, residents such as Felkers' daughter say they 'would have been dead if they could not live in Blikkiesdorp.'

She believes her situation is one example of the hard experiences families go through on the list and in settlements all over Cape Town.