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Organizing Tenants to Stand Up for their Rights and Redevelop their Communities
By Fazila Farouk
Helping renters in South Africa can be a dangerous business, says Sayed Iqbal Mohamed, director and chairperson of the Durban-based Organisation of Civic Rights (OCR). Some landlords arrive to collect monthly rent checks toting a gun.
"This is a high risk job due to the mafia mentality of the landlords," he said. "I have been beaten up many times by both tenants and landlords – and almost shot at."
Sayed Iqbal Mohamed (right) with township residents
OCR tackles a wide range of issues, including tenant rights, inner city redevelopment, equal access to city services, and crime fighting. Its approach is both innovative and holistic, combining research on the homeless, inner city crime and rental accommodations, and advocacy to build partnerships with tenants, landlords, local government, and businesses.
In addition, OCR is the only South African civic sector organization (CSO) to work closely with the government and business sectors in shaping national policies that affect renters, such as the Rental Housing Act of 2000.
"There is a feudal system of landlord-tenant relationships in South Africa," Mohamed said. Tenants suffer being locked out of their apartments, living in apartments with poor or non-existent services, paying higher-than-market rents, and having to pay "goodwill" or "key money" as an illegal way of gaining accommodation – for which receipts are not provided and records not kept.
Focus on Property Ownership Marginalizes Tenants
These practices prevail because there is a general shortage of housing in South Africa, and because renters continue to be a marginalized group in post-apartheid South Africa. After the fall of apartheid, the Mandela government promoted a housing policy that focused on individual home ownership because most people lacked the security of owning a home.
Guaranteeing home ownership was a reasonable way for the Mandela government to ensure that people felt protected. The result has been a massive national program of housing construction and services, for which the government ambitiously promised one million new houses during the first five years of democratic rule.
Unfortunately, this doomed the rental-housing sector to neglect. The government needs to work with the private sector to develop more rental housing to the poor, Mohamed said.
Sayed Iqbal Mohamed
During the past 17 years – a period that has straddled South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy – Mohamed has campaigned for the rights of black 1 tenants and racially mixed couples who live in historically white cities. Despite the apartheid government's efforts to enforce legal segregation, friendships and love grew across the color line. Mixed couples braved the harassment of conservative white neighbors and landlords to become the forerunners of racially integrated living in the so-called white suburbs long before the advent of democracy.
Today, Mohamed works with tenants who have fallen victim to corrupt landlords who charge excessive rents for units in neglected, decrepit buildings. Although most of OCR's clients are poor, working class South African families, there are a growing number of foreigners who are unaware of their rights, or how the South African rental market and laws operate. This makes them easy prey for greedy landlords.
South Africa's immigrant population has been growing since its peaceful transition to democracy because war refugees have been attracted from other parts of the beleaguered African continent. Prosperity is another draw: because South Africa is the biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, it draws immigrants searching for a better life.
Shared Ownership = Headaches for Tenants
Tenants' problems are compounded by complex building ownership arrangements, and confusion about the requirements for property ownership. In some cases, the ownership of buildings is divided into sectional titles so that individual landlords can own separate units.
Problems dealing with an errant landlord are more complex when a building is owned and managed by a "body corporate," comprised of various unit owners. The body corporate is responsible for managing a building's common areas, determining the general rules for the building, collecting rents and fees, and ensuring that taxes and utility bills are paid.
One of the most serious problems OCR encounters occurs when tenants are threatened with eviction because their landlord owes back taxes.
For example, the delinquent tax bill for the "Ana Capri," a ten-story building in inner city Durban with non-functioning elevators, has
reached a whopping half million rand (US$37,500). The electricity and water bill stands at an equally alarming sum of 150,000 rand (US$11,240).
In recent years, a troublingly high number of downtown buildings have defaulted on their taxes. Collectively they owe the city millions of rand.
When such huge amounts of money are owed to the city, the city council attaches the buildings and auctions off them to defray its costs. Unfortunately, this means eviction for building tenants who have been occupying the buildings innocently and paying their rent on time.
Apartment building owners default on their taxes for two reasons, Mohamed said. Many landlords are extremely rich businessmen who deliberately refuse to pay because they know they can get away with it. When their body corporate attempts to make them pay, they reply with legal action, which ties up cases in the courts for years, simply because they can afford to do so.
The second reason is also the so-called "culture of non-payment," a holdover from apartheid days when township residents refused to pay rent and service fees to local authorities to protest apartheid's separate and unequal policies for different races. Whether this is a significant problem or simply an excuse made for greedy business practices is a matter of debate, but it is widely used by banks as an excuse not to extend home loan services to black areas or areas predominantly occupied by black people.
Victim Emerges as Social Entrepreneur
Mohamed, age 45, grew up in Watervalboven, a small country town in the northeastern highlands of South Africa. Because Watervalboven did not have a high school for black children, Mohamed and his family were forced to uproot themselves and move to Durban so that Mohamed could complete his high school education.
Durban was home to the only university in South Africa where Indian students were allowed to study, so Mohamed continued his studies there. Like other black universities in South Africa, it was a hot bed of political activity. For most students, acquiring an academic qualification was secondary to getting a political education and contributing to the anti-apartheid struggle, and Mohamed was no exception.
Durban, like most apartheid-era cities, confined Indian residents to an "Indian trading quarter" in a cramped corner of the city where they lived in dense, substandard accommodations. Mohamed lived in an Indian trading community in Durban's Warrick Avenue Triangle, a tiny hamlet where three main streets meet on the southwest edge of the city's business district.
Mohamed emerged as a social entrepreneur in 1984 when he challenged authorities that were threatening his family and community with eviction. This was a time of increasing domestic political unrest, one decade before the fall of the apartheid regime, and Mohamed had cut his teeth as a student activist in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Mohamed and his neighbors fell victim to the crude Group Areas Act, promulgated in 1950 when the Afrikaner-dominated apartheid government was nearing the height of its power. The act prohibited racially integrated settlements. It was widely applied to forcefully and abruptly eject black families and entire communities from neighborhoods that were deemed too close to white areas.
To fight this eviction, Mohamed formed a partnership with prominent Durban anti-apartheid activist, Billy Nair. Nair had just returned to his native Durban and lived in the Warrick Triangle after a 19-year stint in the infamous Robben Island prison, where anti-apartheid activists were held in seclusion.
Nair, Nelson Mandela and many other anti-aparthied activists had been found guilty of treason in the famous Rivonia Trial of 1961 and were all sentenced to life in prison. Nair was among the first of the Rivonia defendants to be released from prison when the apartheid government started softening its stance due to domestic and international political pressures.
Mohamed and Nair rallied Warrick Triangle residents, who had been encouraged by the recent release of political prisoners. They voluntarily formed apartment and street committees to fight the mass evictions.
Public meeting convened by the OCR in 1988 with resident representatives, independent architects and other stakeholders to present the local council with plans for upgrading and redeveloping the Warrick Avenue Triangle
With Nair and Mohamed's help, these residents formed the Durban Central Residents Committee (DCRC), an interim committee that waged a public campaign against the group areas eviction. Within a year, the residents' mass mobilization caused the government to withdraw the eviction notice.
The successful retraction of the 1984 eviction led residents to ask the DCRC to look at other problems in the area. In response, Mohamed and Nair co-founded the OCR in 1985.
Mohamed became OCR's director when Nair left to pursue a career in politics. Eventually, during the Mandela administration, Nair was elected to Parliament. He has used his position in recent years to lobby for OCR's position on housing-related issues.
An Ingenious Solution
In the early days, OCR primarily focused on unfair rent hikes and racist evictions. A major early victory was the re-instatement of rent boards that had been abolished by the apartheid government in 1986. "The Rent Boards were quasi-judicial bodies that controlled rent increases, and were where tenants and landlords tabled their grievances," Mohamed said.
Many opportunistic landlords took advantage of the abolition of the rent boards to unfairly increase their rents by substantial amounts. OCR mobilized 80 buildings in the inner city and launched a campaign that eventually caused re-instatement of the rent boards within the same year.
When Mohamed looked at the problem of tenant evictions where building owners had defaulted on tax payments, he discovered that not all the landlords in a building were corrupt. Often, it was a corrupt few who had refused to pay their bills.
Mohamed played a strategic role in mediating between the bodies corporate, the tenants and the city council to find a practical solution to this problem. The solution that emerged was ingenious.
Although the magistrate's court had authorized auctioning of buildings that were in arrears, OCR lobbied the city council treasurer, who, in the end, conceded it was immoral to punish all members of the bodies corporate for the errant ways of a few. Next, the high court agreed to block auction of the buildings. The local council and the bodies corporate then joined forces and asked the court to issue orders against the individual corrupt owners.
In the meantime, Mohamed educated community residents through workshops and mobilized them to lobby for new legislation that addressed the problem at a more fundamental level. As a result, the Sectional Title Act was enacted. It permits the city council to collect rent from tenants directly when absentee landlords are in debt and cannot be identified.
Over the years, the scope of OCR's work has widened to include tenant's rights, inner city redevelopment, the homeless, fighting crime and other community matters. At the heart of its approach is an advocacy and lobbying strategy that focuses on public campaigns and is informed by grassroots neighborhood research.
Ismail Mansoor, OCR's CBD anti-crime business co-ordinator, points to a wall built by Metro Rail that permanently blocks off an escape route previously used by thieves
Much of this work requires getting rental housing issues into the public eye. Because Mohamed worked as a journalist and substitute teacher before co-founding establishing organization, he brings journalistic skills and contacts in the industry that have helped ensure OCR and its issues are regularly featured in the local newspapers.
OCR advertises its services through word of mouth and a newsletter titled "Voice of the People." Tenants pay a small fee to join OCR, which entitles them to paralegal advice, updated information on tenant/landlord matters, invitations to meetings and workshops, mediation services, access to a toll free Tenants Help Line and the "Tenant-Landlord Handbook," which clarifies the legal rights of both landlords and tenants.
OCR keeps its service and legal fees low by getting free services from some of Mohamed's lawyer friends. But Mohamed argues that this is not sustainable, and he continues to look for a better solution.
OCR has always operated with a lean staff – it has never had more than four permanent staff members. Volunteer workers have played a large role in supporting the organization. At the moment, OCR has two permanent staff, including Mohamed who is also a member of the executive committee, plus six volunteer staff members.
By the late '90s, Mohamed's achievements, and high public profile as a regular participant in debates about development in the local newspapers, led to calls for him to run for City Council. After his election to a council seat, newspapers reported that he relished his role as a city councilor, but Mohamed said he was disappointed that the local ruling party did not adequately support community residents, and he declined to run for re-election.
Historically, the white-dominated council implemented a skewed system of charging residents for city services, charging higher rates to Indian traders in their part of the city while providing them with inferior services. Thanks to Mohamed's lobbying, the council is revising its rating system, although the wheels of change appear to be moving at snail's pace.
Unlike tenants in other countries, South African tenants have no legal recourse when their landlords illegally lock them out of their apartments and/or disconnect their services. Mohamed is lobbying the minister of Safety and Security to enact criminal legislation to deal with the problem. "There are 8.6 million people affected by this problem nationally," Mohamed said.
Re-Developing Communities
OCR is helping to upgrade the Indian trading neighborhoods and fight their rampant crime problems. The top two problems in the inner city are theft and, more recently, drug dealing.
Because crime affects all inner city inhabitants, not just the Indian traders, OCR's crime-fighting efforts have produced strong partnerships between the local government, tenants, landlords and the business community. OCR has pulled together 19 local organizations to form the Inner City Community Policing Forum.
Mohamed's ability to work with these different partners has spawned a public campaign to fight crimes that victimize traders and tenants. One of his biggest achievements has been organizing an anti-crime street march that attracted large numbers of people, including residents and members of religious groups and the business community.
Mohamed (center) leads anti-crime petition campaign in 1998 with Trevor Bonhomme (wearing red tie), deputy mayor of the South Central Local Council
OCR's community development work also involves improving the delivery of city services to the neighborhoods that previously were designated for blacks. Prince Edward Street, in the heart of the Indian trading district, recently received a face-lift that included adding traffic circles and additional parking bays. For the first time, graceful palm trees line the streets of a once neglected part of town.
Prince Edward Street now sports traffic circles, additional parking bays and graceful palm trees
Although OCR's work has focused on Durban, Mohamed's contributions to national rental policy and legislation have made him a much sought after specialist. He is often invited to national workshops to share his extensive knowledge of rental housing.
OCR is hosting a series of workshops on new legislation governing "sectional title"developments, where individual building units have different owners. It is the only non-profit organization to be invited by the national minister of housing to serve on a rental legislation task team that was set up by her department to review rental legislation.
New rental legislation has established rental tribunals with powers similar to a court of law. Decisions taken by the tribunals will have court authority.
Mohamed is a member of his local rental tribunal, which is newly established and not yet operating. However, he has expressed a serious concern based on his observation of tribunals in other parts of the country.
Mohamed believes that flaws in the new system hinder the proper enforcement of tribunal decisions. Thus, he hopes more amicable relationships will develop between landlords and tenants so that conflicts can be resolved through arbitration.
OCR has entered into partnerships with international tenant's unions in Sweden and Nigeria. Mohamed is working to better organize tenants in South Africa, and plans to establish a national coalition of tenants' associations. Thanks to his successful mediation skills, landlords have now started to recognize the need for tenants' committees.
South Africa is a budding democracy. The future depends on this nation's ability to create a strong foundation that allows the country and its people to blossom. Mohamed has a deep appreciation of this fact as evidenced by his determination to get things right at a fundamental level. Through his work, he is demonstrating the value of a holistic approach that is driven by stakeholder consultation, negotiation and arbitration.
- In South Africa, the term black refers to African, Indian and Coloured South Africans and will be used similarly in this article unless a special reference is made to a specific race group.
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