About 100 former residents of Durban’s Clarendon Home for the disabled are facing a threat of eviction from their temporary accommodation.
|||Durban - About 100 former residents of Durban’s Clarendon Home for the disabled are facing a threat of eviction from their temporary accommodation.
Henry Okonkwo, owner of the building on Maud Mfusi (St George’s) Street, has threatened to remove the doors and windows of the flats where the disabled people are staying.
He claims the KwaZulu-Natal Blind and Deaf Society owe him R88 000 in rent for the flats that have been occupied by disabled people while the home is being renovated.
The residents, who earlier this month refused to move to new quarters in Illovo, said they planned to protest outside the society’s offices today.
Monde Kheswa, a blind resident, said the march would be to demand accommodation. He said the society had abandoned them.
Okonkwo said society management had told him it had no money to pay rent.
He said it had signed a lease in April last year which expired in December. It had not been renewed and the society owed him four months’ rent, he said.
Okonkwo said the society had not communicated with him since and had refused to meet him.
Clarendon was set for renovations by the Department of Human Settlements last year, but work was delayed after some residents refused to move unless it was to a proper home.
The municipality has cut water to the Maud Mfusi Street premises after the bill was not paid.
Kheswa said they fetched water from Clarendon, and because he was blind he had to be led by a child. He also fetched water for those on crutches and wheelchairs who cannot carry buckets.
Another blind resident, Khanyisani Mdletshe, said: “If push comes to shove, we’ll move back to Clarendon.”
Okonkwo said his building, which was strewn with litter after the cleaning staff stopped working because they were not getting paid, had been “hijacked” by the society.
In a letter dated April 12, which residents claim they received on Friday, Okonkwo said he had instructed his lawyer to take the matter to court to seek their eviction and payment of rent.
Society chairwoman Busisiwe Pepu yesterday denied telling Okonkwo to “forcibly evict” the disabled residents.
She said she told him that if Okonkwo allowed the residents to stay he must charge the residents rent as the society does not have money. The society was not aware of today’s planned protest, Pepu said.
Pepu said the residents could still move to the place in Illovo as that was the only offer on the table.
Social Development spokesman Vukani Mbele said the department was still offering the place in Illovo and would not be paying rent to Okonkwo because it had already made grants to the society and had not budgeted for further payments.
Daily News