The community of ward 79 pitches in to build houses under the Letsema Project

RELATED LINKS: Letsema aims to build 1 000 houses JOBURG is moving closer to achieving its goal of providing a habitable housing environment for its residents, thanks to the Letsema housing projects currently under way. Read more Housing plan looks at homeless blues THE City of Johannesburg has a strategy in place to deal with its housing problem. The Housing Master Plan hopes to house the homeless by 2009. Read more Jozi on a mission to speed up housing WITH 50 percent of the City's informal settlements now formalised, the drive to speed up delivery and broaden access to housing by 2014 is gaining new momentum. Read more Councillors FOR a complete list of Johannesburg City councillors, click here.

Volunteers work tirelessly to build the house to roof level

Ward 79's councillor, Petrus Zitha, lends a hand

A home before the winter chill sets in Ten families living in Ivory Park shacks will have proper brick-and-mortar homes before the winter bites, thanks to the Letsema Housing Project. February 26, 2007 By Tammy O'Reilly and Lesego Madumo WITFIELD MOKUBEDI will experience many firsts when he swaps his misshapen corrugated iron shack in Ivory Park for a four-roomed solid brick home. He will be moving in the first week of March, and it will be the first time since he came to Johannesburg in 1990 that he will have a toilet indoors and a designated kitchen area – and the first time that the weather won't give him sleepless nights. "When it rains the water comes in the house," Mokubedi says, speaking about his shack. "In the summer it is very hot and in winter it is very cold. But now I won't mind. I feel like my life will change. I never imagined how it would feel." With the foundation already laid, workers prepare for the brick laying After 11 years on the housing waiting list, Mokubedi had resigned himself to believing that he would live in a shack for the rest of his life, but the Letsema Housing Project reignited his hopes and the hopes of nine other families in the area. The project is part of a partnership between the City's Housing Department and the People's Housing Process, a programme whereby individuals are encouraged to help construct their own houses with financial assistance from the government. Volunteers from the community are trained in brick lying and basic building skills. And often, when they put their minds to it, a house can be built in a day. Building materials sometimes come from business, but the government has made provision for subsidies of R22 000 for houses being built for people from the housing waiting list. "This project has been carried out in many parts of the city, and for a long time this community felt like it was being bypassed," says Petrus Zetha, the councillor for Ward 79. "Witfield didn't believe us until we started bringing in the building materials. At long last 10 families here will have new homes, and with that comes a new life." Each of the recipient families is drawn from the housing waiting list and preference goes to senior citizens, unemployed single mothers and child-headed households. The new occupants will have to pay rates, but in many cases the City's indigent policy will come into place and costs to the owners will be negligible. The other nine families will move into their new homes by the end of March. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za