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The Western Cape Cabinet today devoted quality time to a discussion on the housing crisis in the Western Cape. Cabinet reiterated its deep concern that the housing backlog in our province will not be eliminated without visionary leadership and an extra-ordinary effort from all possible role-players. As a new provincial government, we believe we have already moved significantly to contribute to a solution by increasing our housing budget by about R130 million per year for the next 3 years - bringing our total investment for this period to R1,2 billion.

The problem will not be solved overnight or even within 3 years. But we cannot wait for 20 years to house our people. We, therefore, welcome the change of heart by the DA-run Unicity who now appears to be sharing our concern about the housing backlog. We believe we should co-operate with national and all local governments, the private sector, NGOs and communities in order to tackle the housing challenge and to shorten the waiting period. If we integrate our plans, pool our resources and co-operate generally, then we will give hope to the homeless.

In doing so, Cabinet supports the view of the Premier, Mr Peter Marais, that we are not interested in following the old apartheid planning models of dormitory black townships. In this regard, the media portrayal of a "Noweto" is unfortunate. We want a comprehensive approach to the establishment of racially integrated, economically viable and socially stable communities in the Metro and non-Metro areas. This will be a new model for building a prosperous and united nation.

We need as a matter of urgency to confirm the magnitude of the challenge: the exact number of the homeless, the distribution between rural and urban and between economic and sub-economic. To this end, Cabinet has appointed a Technical Task Team under the Director-General, Dr G Lawrence, to interact with the Unicity and other councils to compile a status report, within 30 days, to determine the need, assess which plans exist for housing, and what the total available resources are at our disposal. This will be the basis for further action by the Western Cape Government in partnership with all other role-players.

Enquiries: Riana Geldenhuys at (021) 483 4705/6/082 376 4709

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape, 22 May 2002