Mamelodi East P.39 Eersterust P.43 Woodlane Village P.46 Street Homelessness P.56 Urban Studio Map P.66

Healing Urban Fractures

INSIDE A PANDEMIC Vulnerability, imagination, innovation in the City of Tshwane

Urban Studio Annual Reflective Report TABLE OF CONTENTS

Inside a pandemic p.01 Stephan de Beer When or demons are unleashed p.14 Lance Thomas Urban Studio: Annual Report 2020 Jude Nnorom p.17 Burgers Park p.21 Salvokop p.27 West Capital Precinct p.32 Mamelodi East p.39 Eersterust p.43 Woodlane Village p.46 Street homelessness p.56 Urban Studio Map p.66

Epilogue p.68

STEPHAN DE BEER

ovid-19 is not really the but, because this takes place in great equalizer, as some the global South, the world does would have it. Instead, not come to a standstill and hardly C ways more visible than be- anyone gives it a thought. fore, it illustrated the cruel ine- The cruelty of debilitating poverty qualities that face humanity. And and the criminality of inequality only some have the ability to are not called out for what it is. protect themselves from the virus, Instead, it is regarded as inevita- whilst others are placed at greater ble. We even resort to Jesus, in- risk. Whereas Covid-19 reveals our terpreting his response to Judas, common and interconnected humanity, saying, 'The poor will always be with us!’ it also puts on vivid display our suggesting that Jesus thereby con- cruel and calculated inhumanity. doned poverty and inequality. What Jesus really did was to turn on the THE PANDEMIC, AND OTHER DEATH-DEALERS farcical Judas, pretending to care for the poor, whilst he not only Many have commented that Covid-19 exploited the poor, but was also is not the only pandemic we face at about to betray Jesus for money2. this time. Annually 7 million children die of preventable diseases1,

1 World Health Organisation, 2020, ‘Child Mortality’, https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/topic-details/GHO/child-mortality, accessed 8 November 2020 2 Theoharis, L., ‘Understanding “The poor will always be with you”. Presented at the Vineyard Justice Network’s 2015 Forum: ‘Jesus, the Kingdom and the Poor’, 16-17 October 2015, https://kairoscenter.org/understanding-the-poor-will-always-be-with-you/, accessed 6 November 2020

Not only do we live inside the glob- less than the threat of temporary al Covid-19 pandemic. For many in Covid-19 shelters closing down. the sites and themes highlighted in ubstance users who had access to this report, negotiating daily liv- shelter and opioid replacement ing inside the pandemic is not so S therapy– finding a moment of stability much different from negotiating life and a real sense of hope, sometimes before the pandemic: hustling for for the first time in many years – piece jobs; avoiding the abuses of faced the streets and relapses into law enforcement agencies; fending substance use, as the lockdown lev- off sexual predators; fighting pos- els were relaxed, and the pressure sible evictions; securing a safe to maintain temporary shelters subsided. space to stay; or ensuring at least one meal per day for your children. he cruelty of debilitating Homeless persons in the City of T poverty; the scourge of gender- based violence; the anxiety of teenage girls in neighbourhoods with no access to safe, decent or private sanitary facilities; food deserts amidst massive wastage of food; are daily occurrences all across the world. In this report, they are named as real death-dealers Fig 1. People standing in a queue to receive food aid amid in our own city, the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, at the Itireleng Informal settlement, near Laudium suburb in Pretoria. even though they do not affect everyone, as Covid-19 does. Those Tshwane, during Covid-19, feared the who make the decisions and dictate possible infection with the virus the future trajectory of the city

FIG1. CGTN, 2020, South Africa to lift alcohol sales ban for home consumption, 25 May 2020, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-25/S-Africa-to-lift-alcohol-sales-ban-for-home- consumption-from-June-QLYZNi6W4g/index.html, accessed 3 November 2020

- PANDEMIC

21% A -

Village, being of

- NSIDE I making, have - http:// challenges. Source: City City Source: challenges.

either having a – %20COT%20IDP%202017 -

and the most vulnerable in 2021, Final Draft, May 2017, 2017, May Draft, Final 2021, - –

he bias of this report, and the theological conviction that

was living informally, with all the associated associated the all with informally, living was

–

considering urban planning, policy making and investment, in order to level playing fields.submission that It the is our well and proper representation. A lack of visionary political leadership, managerialist a approachgovernance, to urban processes and thatcommunities consultative do notcollaborative decision authentically include left many of these communities in a Woodlane state the in of perpetual Salvokop, abandonment and decline. and parts Precinct, are visible demonstrations of the of that fact. West Capital T undergirds our reflection,prioritize the is to most vulnerable in often comes in the way of threatening in comes often the way of threatening local livelihoods or the people right to of be in the attempts city, through at replacing people endeavors. more profitable with In many of the sites, the presence of elected politicians does not necessarily translate into these communities these communities voice, or experiencing having fair

- with with

RACTURES F

Mayor/201721%20Draft%20IDP/Annexure%20A%20 about 600,000 people people 600,000 about -

– VISIONARY continued successive ) RBAN U

Executive

- LEADERSHIP

constituencies The - EALING Of -

LACK H ( by those who are

AND

BUREAUCRATIC ‘infected’ ‘infected’

19 lockdown being a city

accessed 8 November 2020 2020 November 8 accessed ,

ut, even before placed under administration, the city was

VULNERABILITY

In 2016, 18,2% of the population of the City of Tshwane Tshwane of City of the population of the 18,2% In 2016,

www.tshwane.gov.za/sites/Council/Ofiice 20PDF.pdf 3 2017 Plan Development Integrated 1: Annexure Mayor,2017, the Executive of Office of Tshwane, POLITICAL

When there is interest shown, it disinvestment, and disinterest. experienced slow but real decline, These communities in many instances communities featured in this report. political parties, often failed the local governments led by different hindsight we can say hindsight that B

others went undercover. to serve their communities whilst position. Some ward councilors councilors ward Some position. their vocation and not merely a paid cept where they considered this actively engaging their their engaging actively and serving their communities, ex- did not have elected ward councilors under administration. This meant we the Covid In the City of Tshwane, we entered captive dealing tentacles holding thousands the city means remain that unaffected they by mostly these death vulnerable and contested spaces in Their general distance from the most poor, landless or violated sexually. cannot be RBAN U

the city should be assessed through people, blind people, disabled peo- how it includes and creates proper ple, with nowhere else to go, with no access to sources of well-being to public transport in sight, began a those inhabitants of the city that long march home to their villages… are most excluded or marginalized. Some died on the way. Not only the City of Tshwane, but cities and urban political leaders hey knew they were going across the world, struggle to T home potentially to slow starva- engage urban vulnerability in tion. Perhaps they even knew they decisive, imaginative, innovative could be carrying the virus with and radically inclusive ways. them, and would infect their families, Shoshana Brown4 speaks of how it their parents, and grandparents took a pandemic to expose New York back home… As they walked, some City afresh to its food and health were beaten brutally and humiliated care inequities. And in the by the police, who were charged megacities and towns of India, with strictly enforcing the curfew. millions of urban poor people were And yet, there are also real” driven out. In her essay, The attempts in other places to embrace Pandemic is a Portal, Arundhati the most vulnerable urban populations Roy5 describes the horror of not politically and otherwise. The belonging, when it matters. Partnership for Health Cities As the wealthy and the middle- convened online platforms where “ classes enclosed themselves in gat- cities as diverse as Chicago in the ed colonies, our towns and megaci- USA and Colombo in Sri Lanka, ties began to extrude their working- shared good practices and innovative class citizens– their migrant workers – ways of supporting vulnerable urban 6 like so much unwanted accrual. populations during Covid-19 .

Many driven out by their employers A session for mayors addressed safe- and landlords, millions of impover- “ ly loosening physical distancing ished, hungry, thirsty people, young measures, and a second session later and old, men, women, children, sick

4 Brown, S., 2020, How cities can provide rapid relief for vulnerable people during the Covid-19 crisis, The Commonwealth Fund, 24 April 2020, https:// www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-cities-can-provide-rapid-relief-vulnerable-people-during-covid-19-crisis, accessed 7 November 2020 5 Roy, A., 2020, Azadi: Freedom. Facism. Fiction, London, Penguin Books, pp.209-210 6 Vital Strategies, 2020, No one left behind: Supporting vulnerable populations in the COVID-19 era, 15 May 2020, https://www.vitalstrategies.org/no- one-left-behind-supporting-vulnerable-populations-in-the-covid-19-era/, accessed 6 November 2020

? - PANDEMIC SHWANE

A T

Woodlane OF IMAGINED

NSIDE I The new BE ITY

C developments.

THE

in the city since IN FUTURES

‘desirable’ https://spotlight.africa/2020/04/23/ SITES

INCLUSIVE

, 23 April 2020, 2020, April 23 ,

CAN great concern is that the ONTESTED solution for the challenges

in places like Salvokop and Salvokop like in places Village, as they might have to make way for more Instead of truly participatory The Urban Studio is a attempt to accompany deliberate selected geo- graphical sites and themes in the City of spatial Tshwane, contestations are where in order of the day. the same At time, the socio these sites and themes offer promise the of a radically and inclusive flourishinginnovative and city,courageousinterventions be made. urban should A facing some of these are mostly not communities sought from within. External plans threaten and the futures of investment residents were unprecedented, and significant gains administration were made.November 2020, wouldattend do to the well innovative, collabo- to rative model that emerged this during time, and successes. to build on its Spotlight Africa Spotlight

19 - popu- home-

RACTURES F

. In only , accessed 4 November 2020 2020 4 November , accessed RBAN 7 programmes, U

19 19: the miracle of Tshwane, of Tshwane, miracle 19: the accommodating - - tshwane/ - of EALING - H social social - miracle - the -

19 - ”

covid -

and

- health health teams on enhancing services for migrant, homeless, incarcerated and other disadvantagedlations. in the week guided cities’ public De Beer, S., 2020, Homelessness and Covid and Homelessness 2020, S., Beer, De

7 homelessness collaborative interventions made the City and its partners, the fact remains that the broad range of some of the shelters, and discontinuity discontinuity and shelters, the of some in terms of collaboration between Although marred by alleged corrupt dealings with food contracts to researchers from the Universities of Pretoria and South Africa. City of Tshwane joined hands with the Tshwane more Homelessness than 20 Forum, NGOs and FBOs, and creating thecollaborative action, in which the environment for This This was enabled by key officials in different municipal departments, reintegration programmes in all the sites. health care, psycho care, health harm reduction support, and family shelters were created, were created, shelters 1,800 people, and offering primary lessness during Covid 21 days, 25 temporary Covid false start, a remarkable recovery occurred in how itdealt with In the City of Tshwane, after a

planning and developmental process- development like the Thembelihle es, external consultants call resi- Village took 18 years to complete, dents to once-off meetings, where from inception, due to officials in the residents are merely informed the city blocking the project for what the programme of action will at least 12 years; and a lack of be, without having solicited any political leadership failed all input or participation either from those years to override crooked bu- residents –some who have resides in reaucratic processes. Schubart Park these neighbourhoods for over 30 and Kruger Park still stand as years –or from other long-term monuments of a complete failure of institutional partners and land urban governance, having affected a owners that invest in these few thousand people detrimentally. neighbourhoods on a daily basis. place like Eersterust, from n places like Burgers Park, the A the perspective of the land- I presence of strong anchor in- less, is simply forgotten, first by stitutions, and the high percentage the apartheid rulers and now by suc- of property ownership probably cessive post-apartheid governments. contribute to the relative well- A sense of fragmentation also being and stability of this hinders decisive action to neighbourhood, as compared to some overcome different forms of vio- of its immediate surrounding lence that plague this community. neighbours. In the past, the Churches now consider safe space Burgers Park neighbourhood also for victims of gender-based vio- demonstrated its ability to self- lence. This should be accelerated organize in ways that enabled with all the support necessary. resistance to possibly negative Mamelodi East has literally external impacts on the local exploded in size over the past 30 people and their interests. years. Predominantly informal, it The fact that the largest percentage has often been the dumping ground of land in the West Capital for people being displaced from all Precinct is state-owned, has not over the city, or it became the translated in fast-tracking the entry point into a city that is redevelopment of these areas. To still extremely divided spatially. the contrary, an innovative and The distance from economic ground-breaking social housing opportunity and the lack of significant

. : CHANGE

19, - PANDEMIC

URBAN

should be NSIDE I perpetuate – investment

INNOVATION socially, socially,

- TO

draw from the would would require a

neighbourhoods

8 — In reflecting upon

COLLABORATIVE

IMAGINATION FOR

imagining their complete ROM – reality. reality. F

grounded in a different kind of political, moral STRATEGIES

the urgent demands made upon health care strategies during Begun Covid and Jiang insights of They complexity suggest that effective health science. services that responded effectively Development proposals that that proposals Development segregated cities economically or racially challenged. Once a city resolved to place their most vulnerable populations centre stage integration into a city that will be truly and innovative deeply strategies are required inclusive,to enable into such an imagination can inclusive futures be imagined? futures can inclusive It is fairly simple to renew urban of kind the through areas that ordinarily displace the poor. To imagine inclusive futures urban — and human imaginary prior decision to invest (only) in innovative processesfoster, build and ensure that radically willinclusive urban

19: Insights from Complexity from 19: Insights -

base, RACTURES F -

Woodlands Woodlands like the innovative considered RBAN U

building and - EALING H made and and made -

this should be be should this

a new growth point in the city. nstead,

Begun J.W. & Jiang H.J., 2020, Health Care Management During Covid During Care Management Health 2020, H.J., & Jiang J.W. Begun

simply: The question behind this report and the work of the Urban Studio, is local residents and institutions. urban developmental practices that rarely honour the assets, and agency imaginative capacities, of imagining processes and mechanisms that could replace traditional documentation of local processes. Its bias is inclusive urbanism, accompany local communities through research, capacity instead of displacing it. instead of displacing The work of the Urban Studio is to the existing complementing and localstrengthening it, asset of a new should be done through building on mall development. It should not be done in the which way in the traders are displaced Denneboom as a result informal implemented in with partnership the communities of Mamelodi East. This investment, tailor investment, investment need to be designed and Menlyn Mall Boulevard Mall have been drivers of and the I way asIn the same places perpetual marginalization. perpetual marginalization. investment in neighbourhoods the of Mamelodi East, thousands condemn to 8

and at high speed during Covid-19, Speaking specifically of health were characterized by three care and urban vulnerability in New complementary processes, namely York City during Covid-19, Brown 10 communication, collaboration and innovation. writes

The kind of urban change that will While we cannot end structural racism integrate vulnerable populations “ and break intergenerational cycles fully and effectively into the of poverty in the midst of this crisis, urban fabric as participants and there are three interrelated efforts contributors, and that will support that every city can undertake to the holistic flourishing of diverse provide some relief to people hit neighbourhoods such as the ones hardest by COVID-19 and to establish featured in this report, requires an improved infrastructure for innovation. But innovation without ongoing communication and addressing health beyond this crisis. collaboration between the various None of these steps is enough on its stakeholders that make up the city, own; they must be implemented in will never be optimal. Local gov- concert and developed at levels ernments should spend much more commensurate with local need, time on carefully cultivating broad demand, and priorities. -based collaborative partnerships The three processes she” proposes as vehicles for long-term and lo- are: cally-owned urban change. 1. ENABLING SOCIAL CARE PROVIDERS WITH Whilst the processes of communica- TECHNOLOGY tion, collaboration and innovation 2. SCALING THE COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKFORCE apply to urban governance and de- 3. FOCUSING ON THE SOCIAL DRIVERS OF HEALTH velopment in its broadest sense, Brown9 speaks of three interrelated Brown argues that low-income workers processes that any city should placed themselves and their adopt and implement, was it to families at high risk, ‘in ways that ensure safety nets for its most privileged people are spared’, to access vulnerable populations and food and unemployed benefits during neighbourhoods. the pandemic. Through these three interrelated processes people will

9 Brown, 2020 , Science, NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, October 9, 2020. DOI: 10.1056/CAT.20.0541 10 Brown, 2020 Science, NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, October 9, 2020. DOI: 10.1056/CAT.20.0541

relates virus in any shelters in the

19 addressed addressed and there - being through daily -

social care. The social - course, Brown’s proposal proposal Brown’s course, f not only to health, but to

Fig 2. Strategies for Collaborative Urban Change Collaborative for Fig 2. Strategies prohibited during the hard lockdown levels. O mental well psycho drivers of successfully health was have no infections reported been with the incidenceof the Covid of City of Tshwane. During this time a created by Lawyers for Human Rights Helpline was to assist people facing evictions from their homes. Within days more than 1,000 persons called in was and assisted eviction, to prevent something their that was

19 - social approach demonstrated demonstrated assistants,

managed sites -

hirdly, the shelters availability facilitated adherence of through the collaborative his has been clearly collaborative the through

De Beer, S. (concept) & Makina, T. (design), 2020, ‘Strategies for Collaborative Urban Change’ Collaborative for ‘Strategies 2020, (design), T. & Makina, S. (concept) Beer, De

to medication,treatment, as well as emotional and diagnosis and T contributed to span an net of care. extensive peer counsellors, clinical clinical counsellors, peer and occupational therapists, all care volunteers. Site managers, managers, Site volunteers. care workers, community health workers, This was further large network of enhanced social and health by a net for homeless persons city. in the that technology was such a utilized scale to at provide a safety needed shelter wasfacilitated in a similar way. It was the first time resource distribution was managed through a shared application, and urgent placement of people who were all connected to each through other Whatsapp technology; in the Citymanagers in the of NGO Tshwane. Site to establish 27 temporary Covid shelters for homeless communities T accessing the require. support they social care and be supported to stay home, whilst FIG 2.

the general well-being of vulnerable of urban vulnerability, prevents urban communities. Her proposal is decisive action to address and for innovative safety nets including reduce vulnerability. Urban the use of technology, expanding vulnerabilities can only be the social care workforce, and overcome through a deep acknowledgment ensuring that the drivers of health of its existence and impacts. and well-being are addressed. Such Once lockdown happened, the reality strategies require prior commitment of food shortages and the from urban leadership dedicated to concentration of homeless persons, build inclusive cities, in which now even in traditional suburbs, vulnerability will be replaced by could no longer be denied. This resilience, access and agency. was because that which is often rendered invisible in urban policy ADDRESSING URBAN VULNERABILITIES and the public mind, gained much THROUGH VALUE-DRIVEN URBAN GOVERNANCE more visibility. Part of the obligation of activist scholarship is exactly A resolve to address urban this: to make visible what is vulnerability in decisive and rendered invisible; to acknowledge transformative ways, needs to be vulnerability and its depths, where undergirded by value-driven forms denied. of urban governance11, or, even a In the context of Covid-19, the certain kind of urban spirituality. idea of social distancing was Again, the pandemic can teach us in peddled by political leaders and this regard. Even though there is the media. And yet, those most still much more to be understood vulnerable needed tight support about Covid-19, a significant systems and the proximity of people contributor to fast infection who cared, more than ever. Instead rates in some contexts, was the of distance and isolation, it be- denial of the seriousness of Covid-19 by came important to learn the art of political leaders. Similarly, a proximity amidst the pandemic. Only denial to comprehend deeply both proximity can breed solidarity. In Cape the drivers as well as the effects Town, different movements reframed

11 Cf. De Leeuw, E. & Simos, J.(eds), 2017, Healthy Cities: The Theory, Policy, and Practice of Value-Based Urban Planning, New York, Springer-Verlag

of freedoms freedoms - exclusion the denial These un These apartheid local . -

freedoms - psychological, psychological, emotional un would include dealing nside the pandemic there is new a awareness, for those with ealing the ealing urban scars of places like Marabastad and Schubart freedoms, still encountered by

- against people. I eyes to see,inequalities, of theun oppressions profound and removed (if still possible), or of others who historically would not have been deemed welcome in part of the city. this The sites and themes surfaced this report tell in of neighbourhoods where inhabitants often experience profound result from the perpetuation of the structure; city apartheid of people’s right to the an also but city and resources; its of people from makingurban spaces their and determining their own own urban futures. In many of these sites, the most stable occurrence is of daily injustices meted out H Park, with the and racial wounds of the apartheid city, but manifest also also evictions would the it by but post more governments; recent in construction the itself actual beautiful spaces that will include either those who were forcefully

19, -

resources, fractures. resilience. they gather – at a personal, –

wounds contrasting the apathy – urban wounds and and wounds urban

s vulnerable communities experience experience communities s vulnerable the solidarity of partners

healing

to gal evictions from Schubart Park, are visible Studio to is see. committed to The contribute Urban Precinct, the removals from scars Marabastad and ille- of forced communal and spatialconsidering level. In the West Capital Urban vulnerability results deep from urban slowly reducevulnerability previously faced. the depths of and increasing their own their and increasing Over time, such solidarity helps to wells, developing their own own of agency, drinking their from their own developing wells, often the confidence to practice a new sense norm struggles towards their challenges which is A standing with them in their populations during lockdown. populations during lockdown. was the risk taken sought by to those ensure who social care health and support of vulnerable solidarity wouldphysical proximity at also times. This require social solidarity.crucial corrective. And yet, social This was a suggesting instead that we should practice physical distance and the challenge during Covid

the majority of urban dwellers. which is rendered invisible, Value-driven urban governance would creating proximity where there is not speak intellectually only of large-scale abandonment, fosters (in)equality, (in)justice and (un-)freedom, but solidarity where there is apathy, would carve out strategies for long carefully heal where there are deep -term liberation and change that are tan- fractures, and develop strategies gible, that can be measured, that to arrest and overcome un-freedoms, can be seen and felt, even by a injustices and inequalities that little child. are written into the urban fabric. This can only be done by soulful, In many of the sites we reflect upon, faithful urban leaders, that the inherent beauty of these places acknowledges the inherent –and and their people, is overshadowed potential –beauty of every urban by the ugly realities of neglect, inhabitant and every urban space. abandonment and estrangement from people’s own spaces. The soullessness BEYOND ‘NORMALITY’: FINDING THE EXTRA-ORDINARY of urban governance has to be replaced with soulful engagement, With reference to the ‘rupture’ of the carefully luring out the beauty from Covid-19 pandemic, and our ‘longing 12 within and from below, allowing for local for a return to normality’, Roy writes: communities to claim their own Nothing can be worse than a return voice, to practice their own “ to normality. Historically, pandemics agency, and to innovate with bold have forced humans to break with imagination, where bureaucratic the past and imagine their world urban management processes fail to anew. This one is no different. It is a go. portal, a gateway between one alue-driven urban governance, world and the next. or a spirituality of urban V This reflective report” does not governance, that places the city’s engage all the neighbourhoods and most vulnerable populations and political processes in the City of neighbourhoods at the core, will Tshwane. It provides insight into embrace an acknowledgment of that the contestations, challenges and which is wrong, making visible that

12 Roy, A., 2020, Azadi: Freedom. Facism. Fiction, London, Penguin Books, p.214

TUDIO S

based action and

RBAN - • U

T raising, and strategic building, advocacy and - - through research, capacity documentation, awareness communication. We do this as an expression of our commitment to and advance broadcast contribute where could community (praxis) reflection transformational change. It attempts to practice an option for the city’s populations, most as faithfully vulnerable and as best as we could spaces remarkably beautiful? resilient and The Urban as a Studio partner is neighbourhoods committed accompany to and a participant, of local in with the aspirations future solidarity residents and stakeholders. Upon request we seek to contribute in

118 - 19, could - to break with world anew?’ SunMedia, pp.99 SunMedia,

, Stellenbosch, African African Stellenbosch, ,

or managing urban spaces, Clown of the City the of Clown

relation relation to street homelessness, n each of these sites, and in

De Beer, S., 2020, S., 2020, Beer, De thinkable, and a city to be truly inclusive, and its people and transformations be imagined, allowing communities to achieve the un- spaces of everyday urban dwelling and vulnerability, extraordinary the past and Could imagine their not, in the ordinary microcosms of these urban sites, be a portal enabling them ‘ as were done before Covid not the pandemic also in the small Instead of together, being communities a return to normalityresisted. has to be have always resulted done in them,destroyed deep enormous potential. Such fracture which and to ‘normality’, case, would mean do things asto we which, in this the the temptation might be to return an urban theme. an urban theme. I the City of Tshwane,the City of as well as the reality of street homelessness as promises of six urban neighbourhoods neighbourhoods urban six of promises

LANCE THOMAS

On March 11, 2020, the Director Latin daimonium (Greek: daimon) which is General of the World Health Organ- an evil spirit or demon. Pandemoni- ization, Tedros Adhanom Ghe- um is thus loosely translated as all breyesus, declared the novel coro- the demons. navirus SARS-CoV-2 (better known as Covid-19) a pandemic. Pandemonium is also the name of Mil- ton’s city of demons in Paradise Lost. The word pandemic evokes, in my mind Here the capital of hell is in fact at least, the strange image of de- called Pandemonium. Little had I re- mons floating around the city, trying to scare and possess people, alised just how apt a description thus making them ill. This image is this would prove to be under the due to me confusing the etymology Covid-19 lockdown, and how demons, which were previously veiled or in- of the words pandemic and pandemoni- visible, would rush to the surface The etymology of the word um. pan- as ‘ordinary’ people retreated to demic is derived from the Greek their homes. The pandemic was, for words, pan—meaning all; and the Greek the majority perhaps, more like word demos—meaning people (from pandemonium, in the sense of all which we get the English word de- the city’s demons being unleashed. mocracy—i.e. the rule of the peo- When President Cyril Ramaphosa an- ple). Because I conflate pandemic nounced the national lockdown, the with pandemonium, I end up with the demons that pervade our cities were

this met met NLEASHED U

people RE little holistic holistic A resulted

EMONS D

the street, were were street, the UR O their previous

There was HEN W of kindness were

restored to

hese hese acts with compassion by relevant

writing for Cape Argus, says, ‘ camp was a care prison’ for Strandfontein human beings. the needs in of even more fellow inhumane than homeless persons found conditions on the streets. healing demonstrates what collaboration collaboration what demonstrates healing between the facilities, City, churches educationalsociety can and achieve civil when together. working Unfortunately, in Cape story was not Town as positive, and the an opportunity for was exorcism flouted. Instead of following the leads of Durban and Tshwane, the City of Cape Town homeless opted community dunes of denying Strandfontein, the to to move the humanity of homeless persons by not sand the even bothering to explain to them where they who were was person, As why. being one homeless taken and caught in this craziness, and now T in theDepartments City ofTshwane, responding to this generosity, and an exorcism of these enacted. demons were More and were constructed than shelters 20 temporary who had been tortured by the demon of namelessness on now humanity. This model of

reading

Fortunately, tried to make to make tried vulnerability homeless, but or the will to RACTURES

F –

RBAN invisible invisible people on U 19 has exposed. In

EALING H

pronouncement pronouncement also put many

businesses were closed. quickly became evident. quickly became evident.

or the sake of brevity, I would like to list some of the demons

–

look the other their assistance. way and offered there were a few Civic churches, organisations NGOs, and people of good will who were not willing to anyone who cared to look. to look. to the disease cared clearly who evident to anyone years were with their now confinement placed in close into the Caledonian Stadium close to the city centre. People who have been socially distancing for many previously our streets were lumped together that Covid Tshwane, nearly two thousand F implement policyway in a humane through poor disconnect implementation the betweenimplementation policy and Homelessness Network, provision for the President, hopefully through through hopefully President, National the by him to sent letter the This homeless people in our city in an extremely precarious situation. Our remain at home. Churches, schools and legislated that deemed everyone, essential workers, were not to quickly exposed. The President had

This unbridled inhumanity was and selling them to scrap dealers, reflected also in the way ordinary were arrested for being on the citizens and city officials responded streets. These are people who to homelessness elsewhere in Cape cannot eat if they do not work. Town. A couple in Sea Point, who tried What is more demonic is that this providing food to the many homeless hapless pair were arrested but and jobless left destitute by the never processed and thus ended up in pandemic, had their vehicle –a Mini prison, completely unregistered, Cooper– burnt, for caring for which means that they never appeared homeless persons. This car has now before any court and thus were lost become a symbol of resurrection and in the prison system. protest on the beachfront of Sea f it were not for the concerns Point. It was a living symbol of non-clerical ministers of the that resurrection was possible, in I city, in the form of the Lawyers for spite of the supposed triumph of Human Rights, who knew these two evil. personally and went looking for nother horror image in Cape them, they would still be in pris- A Town was that of Bulelani on, because there was no record of Qholani of Khayelitsha, being them. What is even more scary is dragged naked outside of his home, the fact that these two guys met as city officials moved in to three other men in the prison destroy it. This happened while caught in the same situation. Luckily city officials informed South Africans the demons of inhumanity and that they were simply protecting regarding the homeless as subhuman city land, in spite of the and not deserving of any care by President’s call that no evictions the state, was exorcised by the should take place during the Covid-19 ministry of these lawyers who have lockdown. It is ironic that lived an ‘option for the poor’. In the absence Khayelitsha means ‘new home’ when indeed of ecclesial ministers, who chose it is, for many people, no secure rather to minister to a select and safe home at all. group of people in their ‘online These horror stories are not limited churches’ the Beatific Vision had to to Cape Town. The day after the be actualised by God’s other servants lockdown was declared, two waste We heard reports nationally of Ward pickers, who make their daily Councillors taking much needed living off collecting recyclables

NLEASHED often often U

RE protect 19 pan- A churches -

disasters

substance EMONS D

UR O

laws often often laws -

HEN W

Laws bye and Laws certain homeless people, personsnot deemed are human whilstexperience enough to theprotection. same legal when all spheres of collaborate, society demons many pervading of our can in cities the fact be of think especially exorcised. I users, havingshelter and opioid replacement accesstherapy, finding a moment of tostability and a real sense of hope, sometimes for the first time in many years. shelters and safe other places for vulnerable urban people, is dismal. There are far too few places of safety our cities. in all with to deal prepared such as what the Covid demic surfaced.

• • With the right care, mobilised • Government’s investment in • Local governments are very ill Amidst all of the above, as above, of the all Amidst closed their doors and went online, a new type of church was developing on the streets, all over Tshwane: a church whose deity was not locked inside a building and visited on had a Sunday. What unfolded to be

based based daily - classes,

‘Stay home, stay lazy lazy is flouted

retreated retreated to our RACTURES F

RBAN U

ily meal, whilst the narrative that homeless EALING H slogan slogan of government contra- poor but for the middle middle the for but poor catering mainly those for with internet connections. a da rest of us homes. persons are by the fact that many homeless persons had to remain on the streets, working, just to have responsibility for our brother and sister to leaders who are not necessarilyabout others. concerned the good we do is lie, as we a are caught narrative that us keeps docile up in as a we try meta and outsource our

• The church exists, not for the • The • What we hear and assume about

I learnt a number of simple things during lockdown: dicted the demon of violence, where gender home was anything but safe. reports of how the safe’ point scoring, orpoint scoring, for feeding close family and friends. We heard who were Covid, unable and using it to for political work under food, destined for starving people

under COVID-19 was a new type of ness’ (NIV: Jn10: 10). I have won- church that resonated with the pain dered what such ‘life in all its fullness’ of God’s people. The ministers of might mean for all our churches, these churches were ‘essential workers’, generally speaking, but partic- putting their lives on the line ularly inside a pandemic, when pande- every day in order to bring healing monium breaks loose• to those tormented by multiple demons.

Their rites of exorcism were to offer spaces of healing and life. They mediated what I be- lieved Christ calls us to: ‘The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you might have life, life in all its ful-

JUDE NNOROM

he Urban Studio seeks to spaces in South Africa, as well youth advance a community-based movements, churches and other urban praxis though its organizations seeking to become strategic engagement with six agents of inclusive urban Tgeographical sites in the City of transformation. Tshwane (CoT) and to the theme of street homelessness. The Urban Studio operates on five key functions or strategic objectives: The Studio unveils local experiential urban immersions; building leadership; knowledges in these sites of urban doing engaged research; documenting contestation and struggle through and strategic sharing of information, its use of the city as a classroom and advocacy for change. for action, reflection, dialogue, learning, and research. The Studio’s The Urban Studio’s immersions are primary partners are the Centre for always alongside existing community Faith and Community (CFC), based in - or faith-based actors working for the Faculty of Theology and Religion change. We document and reflect on at the University of Pretoria, and existing actions and contestations, the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, an supporting local initiatives through ecumenical grassroot organization. building leadership and doing engaged The Studio has a range of secondary research. Where required, we partners –community based organizations share information strategically to that are active in these sites and other help shape alternative narratives

curricular process of

• www.urbanstudio.org.za disciplinary - issues arisingsites in these as part of its democratizing knowledgecurate to and coming archive out of issues the sites different to facilitate research and theknowledge. It can be visited productionat Studio Urban the of collaboration, ensuring community associates in every site, to about alert events us happening and aims to inform research and hrough these activities, the Studio Studio the activities, these hrough

his report will focus on the • The Studio has created a website • In order to enhance effective T trans development. T activities of the studio which are different from siteoffer to site proposal and for 2021. In sites, the Studio some seeks to empower through local capacity organizations building and education others, while its focus in in on and demonstration projects. advocacy - ,

19 in - visible building - collaborate collaborate

for existential problems,

economic fractures and practitioners and practitioners communities

- urban praxis. In each site disciplinary methodology of - he Urban Studio employs a trans

period of the hard lock down. effects of COVID and went provide out to basic communities needs especially during for the their of community based who organizations were not deterred by the areas of social housing, and necessity of building the the capacity but also opportunities unveiled for strategic interventions in the socio inequalities that mark these sites, the Studio, new forms of collaboration collaboration of forms new Studio, the emerged between the Studio and its six sites. COVID made more 2020, 2020, and its impact on vulnerable the people most in the sites of With the outbreak of COVID by engaging in and education, and advocacy support capacity for community projects. seeking to find realizable and workable workable and realizable find to seeking solutions the Studio seekswith to research, in advancing her community in advancing research, based action, reflection, dialogue and change. T that support local advocacy for

he Burgers Park area of the the Berea Cricket Grounds –reduced inner city is the oldest to a skeleton by a fire and residential neighbourhood abandonment, and the Old Fire Station, in Tshwane. Only a small currently occupied by an artist Tremnant of the historical core community. remains. At the heart of it all sits Burgers Park, a public park The City Hall is another landmark first laid out in 1870. Across the building currently unoccupied after road, the Melrose House is a renovations that were supposed to national monument, and inside the turn it into the offices of the park the house of the city’s first Executive Mayor, but upon completion chief horticulturist is a reminder was handed over worse than before of the area’s early glory. The renovations started. stately building of the Tshwane Over time, almost all the stand- Central Station, designed by alone houses were demolished to architect Herbert Baker, and the make place for a high-rise residential beautiful Barton Keep house on area. Today, the majority of erven Justice Mahomed Street, built in the Burgers Park neighbourhood between 1886 and 1888, are other are occupied by high-rise residential glorious examples of architecture apartments, student housing, social from a bygone era. The Victoria housing and housing for older Hotel has seen better days but has persons. A number of churches- once been a central beacon, as was both traditional and emerging, and

both in traditional church buildings the area, in some ways having been and shopfronts –are active in this anchor institutions, alongside the area. Both public and private churches, when the area went schools and a number of NGOs are through rapid transition in the actively present in Burgers Park. 1990s. Whereas these hotels used to accommodate many tourists in the Being a 5-10 minute walk from the 1990s, shifting demographics and Central Business District with mul- negative discourses about the inner tiple headquarters of national gov- city saw tourists moving east, but ernment departments, there are a most of the hotels repositioned number of well-utilized hotels in themselves well to accommodate

Fig 3. Burgers Park, Pretoria’s oldest park

- CORE

THE

Burgers -

ECLAIMING thesis, University of University thesis, -

R 230 -

, Unpublished PhD , Unpublished 47(2), pp.218 47(2),

sequestration sequestration of 18 run state.

De De Jure company trying to possible possible pathways to re based based organisations have -

, accessed 7 November 2020 2020 7 November accessed , based urban praxis urban based - accommodated a significant ocially, Burgers Park always

based urban praxis, praxis, urban based - Rotterdam, and the University Pretoria. of 20 representatives from the community, the City and Gauteng S homeless population, and substance use and commercial sex work often have been visible in this especially at certain area, times of the day, and in certain areas. Churches and faith engaged constructively with these groups, offering them services as well as integration. In 2006, a collaborativemanagement training programme urban was developed between the Berea Park neighbourhood, the Tshwane, the Institute City for Housing of and Urban Development Studies in property f o r c e tbuildings.inner city This was pre- h e vented through activism from this Forum and almost all 18 buildings, that back then had serious finan- cial problems and municipal debt, were supported to now be in a sol- vent and well

RACTURES F

http://www.carolizejansen.com/Burgerspark.html

. RBAN U 14

being of the the inner city, - EALING H 10 10 apartment build- - implications implications for the black home owners

offered offered property owners’

90% black population. Mother bird hovering over the city: space, spirituality and a community and a spirituality space, city: the over hovering bird Mother residential apartments in

the well 226 -

forum was created, which contrib- which created, was forum time

to -

t some point in the late 1990s and early 2000s a strong local

Jansen, C., 2011, Burgers Park, Pretoria’s oldest park, park, oldest Pretoria’s Park, Burgers 2011, C., Jansen, Refer for more extensive reflections on the changes in the Burgers Park area to the following sources: sources: following the to area Park Burgers the in changes the on reflections extensive more for Refer Pretoria, pp.131 Pretoria, FIG 3. 14 a community Advancing city? our shape knowledges Whose 2014, S., De Beer, 2017, S., De Beer, ings. At some point the local ward councilor was collaborating with a ry of the Gautrain, preventing the demolition of 7 buying the area. It informed the trajecto- education to the large number first of uted uted area. It civic decisions of investors A and on institutional racism equated black withbad, shaping the that south and east of city. Much the of the disinvestmentstereotypes was about based on business, and the exodus of resources from the area to the composition of local churches, the nature and demand of local white to This had neighbourhood neighbourhood changed in small a space of very time from a 100% visitors to the city. visitors to In the 1990s the residential government functions and related

Province underwent an intensive award -winning Park, also at times urban management training carry the effects of poor local programme, both in Rotterdam and in government management, and the Tshwane, which culminated in the greenhouse, fountains and other development of an action plan, assets have been in steady decline. known as the Berea-Burgers Park On the other hand, the Park is very Regeneration Plan. Sadly, this plan utilized by the local community, was never implemented, as and particularly children and young responsible for implementation was people, find it a very productive given to the City, and they failed space. Annually, the Feast of the to activate it, still 14 years later. Clowns has become a feature in the Park, offering a week-long space in Burgers Park, like many other inner which the community can participate city or transitional neighbourhoods, in live concerts, a range of does not have a single narrative activities, and awareness-raising and have to deal with many contes- programmes around social justice. tations. The Park itself, being an

hy has Burgers Park percentage of residents are W resisted going the route government officials working in the of so many other similar inner city central business district? What neighbourhoods in South Africa, could the relative stability and that experienced complete decline? well-being of this neighbourhood be Is it the presence and commitment ascribed to? of local hotels? Is it the active t the same time, however, religious institutions in the area? why is it that economic Can it be the presence of strong A lungs such as the Paul Kruger NGOs and FBOs and their investment Street precinct, running from the in the area? Is it because a large Central Station, have a different

CORE

in THE

should should Burgers vehicle

- seems to the absence the absence ECLAIMING R being of this -

reclaim the core, – need need to be honoured

• led processes, bringing -

and the best place to start is living, playing, working and doing neighbourhood – from within! carve out a common vision and agenda and agenda out a vision carve common area. for the future of this developed was Perhaps, Plan once Regeneration Park the Berea 2006, the implementation an local created have community to implement partsof the plan they had control over. a huge thereof, investment In have been wasted. Unless those who use the area daily – business there the core will always be at risk of being claimed, and tainted violated by external forces. The status and promise of the Burgers Park conventional wisdom andcity areas offer much potential about inner It is a and promise. assertion third that the future well neighbourhood lies with the local community itself: reclaiming core would the probably require local community together churches, NGOs, hoteliers, property owners, small and bigger business, and principals, school to

–

RACTURES

businesses sometimes RBAN

U –

EALING H can be protected and dly, why do government

– being of Burgers Park? in the heartthe neigh- of ourthly, why, if agency is by community the shown local hir assets such as the Berea

–

be sick. It is a further F T speaking, this neighbourhood defies the heart is not will well, the city assertion that, comparatively that Burgers Park belongs to core or heart the of the city, and if It is the assertion of this article and simply the disregard commitment shown and investment made? education and planning programme, fully funded, doesthe City fail to honour such agency and commitment, in organizing an extensive urban bourhood nurtured, they could help sustain the well left to their own If these devises? assets Old Fire Station, and Burgers Park, seem abandoned and Sporting Grounds, City the Hall and seem to flourish? seem to flourish? franchises struggling to struggling franchises make ends meet whilst smaller dynamic, with larger national

Burgers Park

Strategic focus

Collaborative inner-city management of mixed-income, mixed use precinct

Activities: 2020

1. Revisiting the Berea-Burgers Park Regeneration Plan 2. Brainstorming ways forward with local community organisations 3. Capacity-building for community mapping 4. Mapping of the major stakeholders in the area 5. Collaborating with the Department of Geography at the University of Pretoria in developing a geocoded map of the area 6. Visual documentation of the challenges and visions for this inner-city neighborhood

Proposals: 2021

1. Drafting a letter inviting the major stakeholders to a mini-consultation 2. Preparation of a well-grounded proposal for a mini-consultation for all major stakeholders to create possibilities of local community ownership 3. Reviving the local community forum as the vehicle to carry out proposals on the site 4. Documenting the unfolding process and building on the 2006 Berea- Burgers Park Regeneration Plan 5. Commissioning a well-researched article on the challenges and opportunities of implementing inner-city changes

avid Harvey15 speaks of Birthed in 189217, the apartheid ‘creative destruction’, referring government gave this land to the Railways to build 174 houses for to it as the process railway workers. Also present in whereby government and the neighbourhood is the Jopie D private sector collude Fourie Primary School and a former in allowing the decline of a Christian Reformed Church, that now local neighbourhood to a point of hosts the Inkululeko Community Centre. no return, after which they reckon Since the 1990s the neighbourhood they have the moral obligation to changed demographically and today ‘restore’ the neighbourhood and it is a predominantly black the ethical right to do so neighbourhood. A large number of through evicting ‘unwanted’ non-South Africans reside in Salvokop, populations. particularly in the backyard This process is playing itself dwellings and in two small but out on the state-owned land of growing informal settlements. Salvokop, a small neighbourhood It seems strange that a government- in the centre of Tshwane, right owned precinct in which all the behind the Tshwane Central 16 houses are owned by the Department Station .

15 Harvey, D., 2017, Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 610, pp.22-44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25097888 16 For a more extensive reflection on this neighbourhood, see also: De Beer, S., 2014, Whose knowledges shape our city? Advancing a community-based urban praxis, De Jure 47(2), pp.218-230 17 Van den Heever, A., 2006, Field Public Space Infrastructure, Unpublished MArch (Prof) dissertation, Pretoria, University of Pretoria, p.20

of Public Works, have been left to found in Harvey’s notion of decline to a point where managing “creative destruction”. the area has become incredibly dif- ficult. Almost every house has a The proximity of this neighbourhood number of backyard dwellings, and to the central business district, illegal erections of structures – only separate by a foot bridge onto housing either churches or shebeens the Tshwane Central Station, provides or day-care centres – are allowed access to the city and its resources even though all such activities are and makes it an attractive location forbidden by the legal agreement for newcomers to the city. the legal tenant of the house has Today this is contested space and entered into with the Department. the future of the people living in The only explanation for the complete Salvokop, some since birth, is lack of management can perhaps be 18 increasingly uncertain .

18 Kgosana, R., 2020, Pretoria’s old ‘white village’ of Salvokop now plagued by hopelessness, 13 January 2020, https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/society/2227209/gallery-pretorias- old-white-village-of-salvokop-now-plagued-by-hopelessness/, accessed 30 October 2020 FIG 4. Kgosana, R., 2020, ‘Pretoria’s old ‘white village’ of Salvokop now plagued by hopelessness’, The Citizen, 13 January 2020, https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/ society/2227209/gallery-pretorias-old-white-village-of-salvokop-now-plagued-by-hopelessness/, accessed 4 November 2020

empty. DESTRUCUTION

bed shelter - CREATIVE ) UN buildings buildings ( committal as to time residents, - -

African migrants, and very migrants, African into a smart city. Yet, the the Yet, city. smart a into backyard dwellers would

of long

government to recreate government precinct and is ra-

South urrent plans for the area only earmark the development of

- either pronounced this themselves or made on any this effect. commitments to Some years ago, housinga local social company, Yeast City C the ther quiet and non the future of the dents. current The resi- Danish committed to partner with the South Government is African Salvokop inclusion non vulnerable make this be a really smart neighbourhood. Whether that would be achieved is currently very uncertainnone as of the government stakeholders has would leave city existing inner a large numberTo of make way South Africa two property, shelters for the for Statistics street boys were and demolished, in return the Public Works builta 70 Department of completed in 2016. Since then this facility stood empty though.

Fig 4. Salvokop

, RACTURES F

diversity RBAN U headquarters

EALING H owned land, instead of

apartheid neighbourhood, - Services would be givenoffice similar parks, even though this the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Correctional completed in this in precinct 2016, at a cost of 2 billion rand. Next department headquarters. Statistics has already Africa South groups, the bulk groups, the landof the vacant is earmarked for new government post displaying high levels of a mix of uses and a mix of income Being state it using to a model inclusive, truly

Housing, developed 82 social housing depend on those living in the units in the precinct, on church-owned neighbourhood now. If a community land. They modeled the inclusion of is characterized by apathy and backyard dwellers in affordable and division, it probably deserves the sustainable ways, as 50% of their future that will exclude them. But tenants used to live in backyard if a community can get itself dwellings in Salvokop. This modeled mobilized, to drive a collective the possibility of including agenda, grounded in a common the largest percentage of current vision, there might be hope. residents in a future Salvokop, if there was the political will. Communities such as Salvokop hold much promise to contribute to –and Currently, though, it seems as if showcase – a new city. Such promise government is more committed to is often diluted by the lack of erect monuments to self, than to clear vision on the part of both integrate low-income residents government, local communities and sustainably into the inner city, private sector. Who will shape the providing them proximity to social, future of Salvokop and who will be economic and educational opportunities, able to call it home, a decade from and thereby contributing another now? Will the final word belong to brick to the remaking of the the (un)creative destruction of apartheid city. top-down government planning collaborating with the unbridled The future of Salvokop might still greed of capital’s profit? Or will be one in which current residents the people govern?• might have a stake. But that would

planner Salvokop for responsible

clarify the process of the Danish project Danish of process clarify the the community including from the by members ensure participation Savokop of Tshwane PlanningCity and the in Head Urban with of the Meetings the city Communication with National Minister of Public Works, Patricia on de of Public Lille, Minister Works, with National Communication concerning in discussions of including stakeholders importance all the government precinct government forced prevent advocacy displacements to Strengthen Walking alongside the Salvokop Development Forum, Salvokop Residents Salvokop Forum, Residents Development Walking alongsideSalvokop the make all Group, Youth seeking newly formedSalvokop to Forum and the in change Salvokop Salvokop to potential of andon academic popular articles Producing the within a neighborhood a socially of inclusive become example an Collaborating with the Department of for Geography with a geocodedmap- the Department Collaborating area. of ping the the area the Youth building through members the of the some capacity Monthly of school Activist Visual documentation of the site with interviews major stakeholders site with in of of the Visualdocumentation the Supporting informed participation of Salvokop residents residents of Salvokop through participation informed Supporting

• • • •

4. 2. 3. 1. 3. 2. 1.

Proposals: 2021 Proposals:

The City promised City The to

Activities: 2020 Activities: Strategic Focus Strategic preventing and land public of redevelopment urban the in inclusivity for Advocating displacement Salvokop

he West Capital Precinct19 SKELETONS is what the long-term vision and plan for the west- Much of the vacant land in the West ern part of the inner city Capital Precinct used to form part Tof Tshwane is called20. This area of vibrant but poor urban stretches from Church Square and neighbourhoods, known as the Cape Paul Kruger Street in the east, to Malay Quarters, Asiatic Bazaar and Pretoria West, and from WF Nkomo Bantule, today just called Marabastad. Street (old Church Street) in the E’zkia Mphahlele21 writes lyrically south to the natural boundary of about life in this community in the Apies River in the north. Down Second Avenue. Displaces between the 1960s and 1972 through It is an area rich with history and forced removals to surrounding heritage, but also deeply scarred townships for black, Coloured and by the wound of apartheid forced Indian people, the scars of that removals, and more recent local past is still too evident in government failure that displaced Marabastad. thousands and left once-flourishing low-cost housing facilities to be In the 1990s a growing informal mere skeletons. settlement developed on vacant land

19 Urban Studio, 2020, West Capital Precinct, https://www.urbanstudio.org.za/west-capital-precinct, accessed 19 October 2020 20 Also see: De Beer, S., 2014, Whose knowledges shape our city? Advancing a community-based urban praxis, De Jure 47(2), pp.218-230 21 Mphahlele, E., 1959, Down Second Avenue, London, Faber & Faber

- - ONES B

state park - - RY - D over to - - VULTURES

schubart - 7 years, move - 24 - -

10 - news/dismay SEEDY -

squatters -

AND

DREAMS

For a long time, this has has this time, a long For https://mg.co.za/article/2011

. https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria 24 valuable infrastructure was

HATTERED S

, 24 October 2011, 2011, October 24 , rather becoming permanent accommodation accommodation permanent becoming rather for many people, including people precinct. A community of homeless persons resisted displacement the in early 2000s. Their with advocacy, the support of based leaders in the city, prompted some faith the city to make Struben Street as only the official persons available homeless for no.2 shelter overnight in the city. However, in spite of the participatoryindicated that the process facility should thatbe run by a credible NGO, the City opted to run the shelter Today, and for the itself. past 5 there has been no management of the facility ceased to be an overnight shelter, also people, The upon City, evicting did not safeguard the and buildings, stripped to the bone over a short period of time, literally leaving physical skeletons. There are also other spaces in this https://www.news24.com/News24/Marabastad , 22 September 2017, 2017, , September 22 RACTURES .

which which Mail & Guardian & Mail

– RBAN

Pretoria News Pretoria

but the but the

unserviced unserviced – . Most of to what is commuters, 22 EALING

– H job opportunity opportunity job were evicted and and rise municipal – caused conditions conditions - managed facilities managed

, accessed 4 October 2020 2020 4 October accessed , high , accessed 18 October 2020 October 18 , accessed –

injustice/ - . More than 1,000 fami- 23 11317353 , accessed 4 October 2020 October 4 , accessed -

rewarded with an bus industry shelter

20020813 dishonourable - - third forced removal occurred a -

in 2011

homeless

- Tlhabye, G., 2017, Dismay over state of homeless shelter, shelter, of homeless state over Dismay G., 2017, Tlhabye, News24, 2002, Marabastad squatters move to Mamelodi, 3 August 2002, 2002, August 3 Mamelodi, to move squatters Marabastad 2002, News24, injustice, a dishonourable eviction Park Schubart D., Bilchitz, officially voluntarily of 24 - Mamelodi 23 eviction 22 this was in fact illegal eviction. their mismanagement Constitutional Court ruled that The City spoke of it as evacuation due to poor living housing complexes from these poorly A lies who resided in Kruger Park and Schubart Park people, movement and Marabastad. such as was offered in economic opportunity and the proximity of a concentration of without moved more than 30kms out of town, were they plot of land, with no access to the promises of made infrastructure to people were not kept. For being – today known as Phomolong basis. In 2002, under Mayor Simangaliso Simangaliso Mayor under 2002, In basis. Mkhatshwa people were moved taxi and and taxi thismoving through area on a daily in the 2,000 Marabastad people area. lived informal businesses, here supporting the Around and ran

who can afford housing. affordable housing units for Across the road is the building of pensioners –who lack proper social the Department of Home Affairs support or relations with families where immigrants queue up for who can accommodate them –is fast asylum papers or to apply for legal reducing. documentation to remain in South Africa. Notorious for corrupt practices n all these cases a combination by Home Affairs officials, many I of greedy owners, officials or sordid tales are told of abuse and fellow citizens, together with victimization of foreign nationals. corrupt, inept or racist management, cause the violation of the poor few blocks from these two spaces and vulnerable in incomprehensible A is a new student accommodation, ways. The dream of the original replacing what –a little over one constructors of Huis Davidtz, the year ago –was still Huis Davidtz25. dream of those who agitated for a Huis Davidtz was built decades ago decent overnight shelter, and to house lower-income old people in migrants’ dream of a better life a retirement facility. Unhealthy for their families and themselves, labour practices caused a strike by lie shattered across this precinct. workers in this facility. With support The western part of the West Capital from a certain political party the Precinct includes the commercial, protest intensified, and old people industrial and residential zones of living in the facility were not Pretoria West –historically a working cared for any longer. The owners of class white neighbourhood and today the property, all church people, a rather diverse mix of people from instead of addressing the labour different racial and economic issues to rescue the future of the backgrounds, and also very Afropolitan building, settled for the highest in its composition. The fabric of profit and sold off the property. the area has decayed over the past This helped to deplete an already two to three decades and needs tender, stretched sector in which the number of robust care.

25 Matshili, R., 2019, Huis Davidtz Centre shut, residents moved, Pretoria News, 1 October 2019, https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/huis-davidtz-centre-shut-residents-moved- 33748201, accessed 18 October 2020

ONES B

RY D

a custodian and and a custodian

, accessed 2 November 2020 2020 November 2 , accessed . nt & Pretoria Inner City Partnership, 1997, 1997, Partnership, City Inner nt & Pretoria

park.html -

plans from the lived schubart - government, civic stakeholders civic stakeholders government,

apocalyptic -

local Capital Precinct Fig 5. Schubart Park, West in the meantime. It is who the custodian of this dream is, not clear and a dream without partners who can hold it vanish together, to bound is The disconnection ofofficial the city’s experiences and realities in precinct; the disconnection between the RACTURES F in

– RBAN U

Mkhatshwa , EALING

H http://hermanverwey.blogspot.com/2014/06/post

design/ - sucking sucking forces that urban - - Under Under Mayor

sharing community community sharing f a collaborative f a collaborative no alternative imaginary Urban Design’, prepared by Aziz Tayob Architects for the (then) Pretoria Planning and Development Departme and Development Planning Pretoria (then) the for Architects Tayob Aziz by prepared Design’, Urban ISCONNECTION .

- - o

26 D –

arc.com/marabastad -

different regions of takeholders in the

Verwey, H.,2014, ‘Post apocalyptic Schubart Park’, Schubart Park’, apocalyptic ‘Post H.,2014, Verwey, See the ‘Marabastad ‘Marabastad the See 26 https://www.co FIG 5. some who have moved along Capital created by Precinct city officials was The dream for the West vision and below. agenda from information o r g a n i z i n g ,fostering o r t h e hardly know each There is other. no platform for the the West Capital Precinct been birthed since then. S Precinct owned by the local community has this dream was spite of the ambitious West Capital shelved and dream for Marabastad the resurrection of Pretoria Inner City birthed Partnership, a beautiful and concrete connection. connection. In the late 1990s the Marabastad Development Forum formed, and in conjunction with the was ating the life leave dry bones, is a sense of dis- One of the mainOne of the factorsperpetu- in

and private business; and the city’s poorest populations. disconnection among local community stakeholders themselves; might Ezekiel’s was a ‘restorative eschatological condemn this area to a bleak, inco- theology’27 that should be retrieved, herent and un-flourishing future; argue Biwul, and claimed for unless those with historical strong African communities. In a context roots and connection to the space, where the dream of Mandela, and those currently calling this Nkrumah, Kenyatta and Nyerere28 is space home or place of income, ‘gradually experiencing a growing downward take collective action to overcome spiral against their vision and dream,’29 a the disconnected, and reweave what potent new imaginary is required. is broken. he West Capital Precinct, in a A RATTLING SOUND T real sense, is a small microcosm of the much larger dominant narrative and picture of destructive …one can hear a rattling sound. In African urban governance. But also the Biblical vision of the prophet in this valley of dry bones –where Ezekiel, he is placed in a valley the migrants from all over the of dry bones. Yet, something was continent gather in Pretoria West, happening, and, over time, through and cultures and religions meet in a rattling sound, the bones moved Marabastad, and homeless people together again, flesh were put to do their washing alongside the bones, and life breathed into Steenhovenspruit, and Thembelihle them. This could be a remarkable Village offers hope and home to 738 imaginary for the process of families, and churches offer a restoring an area devastated, not sense of belonging to tired urban by a war of weapons, but first by a souls –Ezekiel’s vision could apply. racist political system, and then by corrupt and inept governance Eichrodt30 speaks of the life- that held little regard for the giving spirit at work in the valley

27 Biwul, J.K.T., 2017, ‘The vision of “Dry Bones” in Ezekiel 37:1–28: Resonating Ezekiel’s message as the African prophet of hope’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 73(3), a4707, https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4707 28 Biwul, 2017 29 Biwul, 2017 30 Eichrodt, W., 1970, Ezekiel: A commentary, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, p.509 38

ONES B

the the RY D POLITICAL - Now, dry HTS Teologiese Teologiese HTS

• SOCIO -

membered, and

- THEO

IMAGINARY NEW

ones re IN might not just be an

SHERING

A new urban imaginary is required to overcome the skeletons of this urban precinct.address the social exclusions and It political needs failures. It to needs build on the to theological hopes of those of called different this their home. faiths It needs to who reclaim space that was taken, violated and scarred. bones, ‘ live!’ esoteric prophetic vision but an urban rally cry for life and the African exorcising traditional dances under the of trees believers hovenspruit; next through such retriev- to Steen- al and connection the dry bones might be called to life, and disconnected skeletons transformed into living organisms dealing life to many a tired urban wanderer.

RACTURES F of

28: Resonating Ezekiel’s message as the African prophet of hope’ prophet African the as message Ezekiel’s 28: Resonating – RBAN U

memory EALING

a major offensive ” https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4707 the voice of Ezekiel,

’ who will soon say, , , and the noise form the 73(3), a4707, a4707, 73(3),

from the old Synagogue

’ –

and connected to the songs place of skeletons, shattered shattered skeletons, of place drawing from this theological theological this from drawing –

, , social, economic, religious, moral , 31

Biwul, J.K.T., 2017, ‘The vision of “Dry Bones” in Ezekiel 37:1 in Ezekiel Bones” “Dry of vision ‘The 2017, J.K.T., Biwul,

31 Studies Studies/Theological gathering in historical Marabastad, historical church on Madiba Street, and the hopes of the Bosman and Hindu and Muslim worshippers still to live of Tshwane resounding from the corridors andSchubart Park children where learnt play areas in were on trial for their dream for a liberated people; from the retrieved where Mandela, Sisulu and others more be heard. If the haunted spaces can only be dreams anddisconnection yet small greedy pangs hope, a of rattling sound might vultures, once In this and environmental life will, expectedly, be a realizedhope. heard for rattling rattling sound of a revived and reformed political their Africantheir prophet ’Dry bones, live’ Biwul vision, speaks of ‘ victory for life. victory of dead bones as against the forces of death, which must result in a ‘

“

West Capital Precinct

Strategic Focus

Advocating for participatory, community-based planning of the precinct; social housing and restoring the homeless shelter

Activities: 2020

1. Building trust & partnership with the business forum 2. Starting a conversation with the Hindu temple, a national heritage site 3. Interface the work of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Pretoria with the Urban Studio 4. Visual and advocacy documentation for re-imagining the precinct

Proposal: 2021

1. Encouraging a proposal for upgrading and management of the homeless shelter in the precinct 2. Advocate for the appropriate use of public land in partnership with Lawyers for Human Rights 3. Strategize on the formation of a local advocacy group – The West- Capital Forum – to participate fully in shaping future plans for the area 4. Curating and documenting already existing materials on the area into a permanent exhibition – virtual and physical

n the database of the Centre 10-20 years. They are predominantly for Faith and Community, we informal with varying degree of have mapped 90 community- formalization and in various stages O based organisations, active of people obtaining land rights. In in the Mamelodi East neighbourhoods case of heavy rains or flooding, of the Mamelodi Township32. They these communities are particularly offer services ranging from early vulnerable, but on a daily basis child dev elo pment and t he economic and food security are huge development of food gardens at challenges. schools, to substance use programmes and skills development for he role of community-based young unemployed people. T organisations, mostly under- resourced and under-capacitated, esilient communities are cannot be underestimated. Such R communities in which local organisations –as an expression of people and institutions develop and a locally engaged civic– might practice their own agency, and draw often be the unrecognized and from their assets, to engage invisible glue that keeps frail and overcome local challenges. Many communities together. Their presence of the neighbourhoods in Mamelodi and service reduce harm and East, especially, are relatively mitigate risk in concrete, physical new having sprung up over the last ways. Their connectivity mediates a

32 https://www.urbanstudio.org.za/mamelodi-east

Fig 6. Mamelodi residents clash over basic services’

sense of belonging and for those neighbourhoods of Mamelodi East, initiating such organisations, should be explored in greater volunteering in them or benefiting depth33. Do they serve as sources of from them, these organisations are resilience and hope, or as pacifiers of often meaning-making. extremely vulnerable communities? nd yet, their real impact often In an earlier project we mapped A goes unnoticed, is under- churches in the eastern parts of researched, not well-assessed, and Mamelodi, with specific attention to hardly documented. Similarly, the ways in which they responded to role of faith communities in the

33 Renkin, W., 2017, ‘Responses to migration: Tensions and ambiguities of churches in Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 73(3), a4725. https://doi. org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4725

FIG 6. Mitchley, A., 2017, ‘Mamelodi residents clash over basic services’, Pretoria News, 22 June 2020, https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/mamelodi-residents-clash- over-basic-services-20170622, accessed 2 November 2020

LUE ,

base and - NRECOGNISED U

holding the S ’ –

people constituting constituting people •

OMMUNITY C

establishing and offering a local CBO and the many ECOGNIZING – R . Through pooling information, they broadening their own asset are overcoming currently building the doing, strongagency. Such a hub could facilitate odds resources of sharing and collaborativepooling throughsuch agency. and support building such This could be a strong and visible recognition of glue the unrecognized its main ingredient community together could be replaced with collaboration, with collaboration, be could replaced and a collective agenda for local community transformation could be time. shaped over A place through to starthub couldknowledge, leadership be resources, and organisations other are able to replicate and multiply the good

a l o c a l

RACTURES F

RBAN U

EALING going research, that might H Urban Studio, through curating curating through Studio, Urban transnational. transnational. -

an archive of information on he

could become the vehicles for local change. transformational Competition information base, new networks of relationships can be shaped, that important societalthe process of building sector. In and on serve to strengthen this vitally shortcomings, could help identify critical education, civic and popular areasbuilding, for capacity Simultaneously, assessing in doing real so, impact and also to legitimize and public. what they do to the broader broadcast would not only serve to their stories document and activities, but T the work of CBOs in Mamelodi East, and issues of migration, both local

Mamelodi East

Strategic focus

Advocacy & capacity-building of CBOs in fostering their agency for creating social infrastructure in an urban township

Activities: 2020

1. Identification of an on the ground contact person who will bond CBOs and FBOs in Mamelodi East 2. Interfacing the studio with the Social Entrepreneurship research project of the Department of Business Management at the University of Pretoria 3. Drafted a proposal on interfacing the Studio with the vision of the Pre -University Academy in Mamelodi 4. Visual documentation of the activity of one of the CBO’s in Mamelodi East that responds to issues of substance abuse, homelessness and after school care

Proposals: 2021

1. Occupy and make use of the Centre’s office space on the Mamelodi campus –as a CBO/FBO hub 2. Participating fully in the Mamelodi Learning Collaborative Mapping the NGOs & FBOs in our database to identify needs for capacity building 3. In collaboration with the Pre-University Academy, hosting an exhibition that will bring together CBOs & FBOs in Mamelodi with some members of different Faculties at the University of Pretoria 4. Explore possibilities of solidarity action research that will unveil capacities of community based agencies 5. Documenting activities and impact of CBOs/FBOs/NGOs

ersterust is a small commu- Over the years, apart from nity of 29,676 people, Eersterust being a vibrant community, according to the 2011 and in some ways closely-knit, over National Census, and only the years it has also been marked E4.9 square kilometres. Located by gang activity, substance use, about 15kms northeast of Tshwane’s violence, and, increasingly, gender city centre, Eersterust is the -based violence. In recent months, first and main Coloured township a growing concern about access to in the city, and still today 83% land and housing has surfaced, with of the population is Coloured, 14% poor residents living informally, black and 2% from other racial questioning why much of government’s groups34. housing interventions seem to pass by this community. The majority of Eersterust’s people come from families who have Despite the smallness of the community, been forcibly removed from some estimate the presence of 500 Marabastad, Claremont and Lady churches, literally a church for Selborne in the 1960s, due to every 60 people. This includes apartheid legislation separating mainstream traditional and charismatic/ people according to their racial Pentecostal churches, storefront classifications. churches and a proliferation of house churches. This speaks of a

34 See also this recently developed virtual resource: http://www.eersterust.com/

lack of unit among Christian has been invited to journey with churches, which also have a direct the community in Eersterust, and we impact on the inability of the have identified two specific areas community to engage its most critical where we would like to support challenges decisively, and in local struggles and aspirations. transformative ways. Some collective of churches has identified the need for safe spaces, f Ray Bakke writes that we need particularly for victims of gender- I a theology as big as the city, based violence35. We were asked to Eersterust as an urban community is accompany this process, both from a small enough to fully embrace. And r e s e a r c h a n d d o c u m e n t i n g yet, without the critical felt perspective, but possibly also needs and challenges that disable through building local capacity. this community’s flourishing being Secondly, we have been asked to fully present on the agendas of the participate more deliberately in local church, the church would be brokering tables of conversation unable to mediate such flourishing about land and housing issues that in holistic ways. have become more acute in recent times, without forced evictions, The Centre for Faith and Community pending homelessness, lack of access to land rights, and slowness Fig 7. Eersterust of government interventions36.

If a critical mass of local citizens and organisations can foster a joint agenda to address the two issues above, important inroads would be made, both in terms of addressing two critical issues, but also in fostering the confidence of the local community in its own ability to make decisive and constructive change•

35 Mahlokwane, J., 2020, Eersterust residents in march against gender-based violence, Pretoria News, 17 June 2020, https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/eersterust-residents-in-march -against-gender-based-violence-49476266, accessed 4 November 2020 36 Mothatha, W., 2020, Relative calm returns to Eersterust after land invastion, SABC News, 26 June 2020, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/lm-relative-calm-returns-to-eersterust -after-land-invasion/, accessed 4 November 2020 FIG 7. Eersterust our community, 2020, http://www.eersterust.com/, accessed 2 November 2020

concerns concerns in Eersterust Extension 4 in Mamelodi Extension in land on rights with Lawyers Human and housing Rights for Collaborating Eersterust thematic some localresearch of into persons on deliberate the Engage held virtually with about 12 participants from different church in groups 12from participants different about with held virtually Eersterust in Eersterust church assets Mapping of the in settlement) land (informal contested of the documentation Visual In April a capacity building workshop on strategies for combatting GBV was GBV for combatting building on workshop strategies In a April capacity

4. 5. 2. 3. 1.

advocating for land and housing rights housing and land for advocating 2020 Activities: Eersterust Focus Strategic and GBV, of victims for spaces space create to of churches the capacity Building

pproximately 4,000 people 7,500 seats, hosting predominantly live in an informal white Afrikaans-speaking members, settlement, known as Wood- but now also having an English and lane Village by some, or vernacular church services. APlastic View by others, situated in the new eastern suburbs of Pre- For the past 10-15 years the golf toria / Tshwane. Across the road, estate, and other estates, and the a few hundred people live in the informal settlements, were facing off smaller informal settlement of in contestations over space, Cemetery View. What makes these two holding on to radically different settlements particularly interesting imaginaries of what that part of is their location opposite the the city was supposed to be. The Woodhill Golf Estate and the Wood- church, being squashed between the lands Boulevard Shopping Mall, informal settlement and the housing surrounded by upmarket security estates, with members conflicted villages and lifestyle estates, over their position in relation to and the Pretoria East Hospital, the informal settlements, found and adjacent to the Moreleta itself in a rather precarious Park Dutch Reformed Church, with position. From an initial position

37 Adapted from a paper read at the annual Just Urban Imaginaries Colloquium of the Centre for Urban and Built Environment Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, 15 August 2019, titled “Imagining a spatial miracle? When golf estate, church and informal settlement face-off / each other – journeying in Woodlane Village (Plastic View) / Moreleta Park”

IRACLE M

PATIAL S

MAGINGING I

Thirteen court cases informal later, settlements still the exist, with legal orders.different court The City of protection Tshwane failed through to uphold a number of clear directives specified the courts. by , accessed 4 November 2020 November 4 , accessed

‘illegality’

https://pieterdevos.ca/homelands , RACTURES F

Homelands RBAN U

EALING H

De Vos, P., 2017, ‘Evening gospel’, gospel’, ‘Evening 2017, Vos, P., De

Evening church service in Woodlane Village FIG 7. itself in relation to informality. wealthier surrounding estates, housing the church had to face to a place of tentative solidarity, and animosity experiencing from the of not wanting to condone

Fig 7. Fig 7.

income, income, but the city failed to -

use use and mixed -

2020 2020 - A A group of home owner associations approached the Court to seek a legal On the insistence of various homeowner associations, the City of Tshwane, the Based on the Court order, the City called for proposals for this land, to be inclu- The The Minister of Safety and Security does not comply with the court order and at Just before his departure as Executive Mayor, Dr Kgosientse Ramokgopa sought the eviction by the City and the SAPS are deemed illegal by the Supreme Court The The Pretoria High Court holds the Minister in contempt, fine him with R 10,000 and

for Humanfor Rights blocked the sale the of land. 2009 The City breached the court order, failing to maintain the fence, access control and lights, and also failed to implement the redevelopment required by the court order. Between 2006 and 2015 there was a total of 13 court cases related to the informal settlement. demarcated area on this vacant land, and to develop a plan for either the relo- cation of the informal dwellers in the vicinity or for their grated integrationdevelopment this on The City was site. given a certain period to do this. into an inte- - sive of the informal dwellers. Three consortiums submit plans showing the viability of an inclusionary project of mixed award the project to these any of Consortiums. - to sell this land, against the court orders instructions, to the highest bidder. Lawyers 4am on 16 August of 2007 members of down 50 shacks. the SAPS and security personnel burnt - issues a warrant for his arrest. The Police is given 12 hours to shacks. This time they comply. rebuild the torched - eviction of the informal settlement. The City claimed space that to it move had people no to, upon alternative which the Court compels the City to create a - SAPS and the Department of Home Affairs, raided the informal settlement twice, burning or breaking down shacks. With the assistance of Tswelopele Step by Step, a local NGO, Impact Litigation Lawyers, and later Lawyers for Human Rights, took the matterto the Supreme Court of Appeal. - and the City is instructedto rebuild the demolished shacks. -

2006 2008 2015 2007 2009 30 May 30 29 August 29 16 August 16

IRACLE

PATIAL S

MAGINGING I

built facilities for health -

omehow the church’s commitment also took its toll, on

Then there are Colin Dredge. They started out by feeding and Denise people in this community, expression as of an responsibility, their background. church coming Christian conservative rather from a In 2015, when then Mayor Ramokgopa wanted to sell of church the land, became the a court, standing in solidarity with friend of the Village. This the now, a from far cry their original position. did not endear them Itto many of its members, and many its of neighbours in the estates. S membership and Moreleta Park learns to be a church on finances. in As solidarity neighbours, with the cost their is considerable. becoming poor numberVillage. A of other NGOs of- hostedfers services, on the church premises. The church currently is going through a rezoning process, because the first grade 7 learners are completing primary school and the church wants to build school. a high It also wants purpose to create care, recycling Village. activity linked to the and economic

OGETHER T

RACTURES F

RBAN U

EARNING Of course, theologically, theologically, course, Of : L church over looming the - EALING

HURCH

he story of Moreletapark Church in relation to the informal

HE T

school serving children from the One cannot pinpoint exactly where the shift happened. But, today, the church runs a preschool and primary illegitimate. dignity and labelled inclusion of / those excluded / deemed Jesus was controversially forever crossing boundaries to assert the settlement because the settlements was illegal. this is an untenable position, as Initially the line was that it will not touch the church’s official position. flicted over their position in relation to the settlements, informal found itself in a rather precarious the informal settlement housing estates, with and members con- the settlement is indeed The church, being intriguing. squashed between early 2000 after they outgrew their original facility. T Park Dutch Reformed Church 7,500 seater that was built is in the a is the mega informal settlement. The Moreleta One of the distinctivesOne of the site of the

But in the face of human rights t was the Church that played abuses, and illegal evictions, they I the role of broker to bring were drawn in by the villagers to very diverse people to the table, find legal support. Before long, launching the Forum by hosting a they were outspoken supporters of former Executive Mayor, Solly the Village and their right to the Msimanga, to hear his views on the city; becoming unlikely activists. Village. Although his and his The toll on them has been officials’ presence were rather significant. Theirs was an uninspiring, concentrating on the expression of activist church. large presence of foreign nationals instead, on the same evening the In the shadow of the big church are proposal to launch a Forum found also those of the village, worshipping traction. in ways that blend African traditional religion and the he initial meetings of the Christian faith, requiring little T Forum became very tense, resources; yet, resourcing between those still wanting to themselves through a spirituality force people out, and those insisting of resilience, tenacity, and on local solutions on this piece of holding their ground. land. Three sub-forums were then established, dealing with social

THE FORUM: FACING EACH OTHER development, safety and security issues, and urban development, housing and sanitation. Leaders In 2019, the Woodlane Informal from all the different communities Settlement Forum was created, for –including the informal settlements- the first time representing leaders participated together. from all these contesting communities, as well as NGO leaders Since its inception, new conflicts emerged, leadership battles surfaced– and academics, now facing each other, not even between those with and exploring the possibility of a resources and the informal collective vision for the sites on settlement leaders, but among which the informal settlements are resourceful white people not seeing located. eye to eye. Currently, these contestations are being navigated,

- ,

IRACLE M

PATIAL

‘solely ‘solely a… reli- ” For Arendt, a MAGINATION ‘into ‘into the context of I is not

MAGINGING I EW

spatial inclusion? ‘whenever something new - A N alternative possibilities alternative

‘miracle’ ‘miracle’

. inequality and fragmentation, and fragmentation, inequality 38

…to …to dispel the suspicion that hoping for or, more accurately, counting on miracles is frivolous, we first have utterly to forget the role of foolish miracles have always played and and superstition... in faith , bursting ‘miracle’ “

natural breaks into natural events or the natural course of human affairs.’ miracle is occurs’ predictable processes as something unexpected, translated into radical socio a miracle miracle On of Hanna Arendt frequently speaks of new beginnings, or the initiation of radical as For Arendt gious phenomenon by which something super- toof this area build a sustainable And so forth new village? Against the Africa’s divided backdrop history of socio of spatial South can this journey spatial foster imaginary, a just eventually

(edited & introduction by Jerome Kohn), Schocken Books, p.111 Books, Schocken Kohn), Jerome by & introduction (edited RACTURES

RBAN U

EALING

H The Promise of Politics, Politics, of Promise The

to imagine a radically

erhaps the current contestation is between the problem

Arndt, H., 2005, 2005, H., Arndt, 38 to be considered? economic What opportunities or are futures the and in situ upgrading of stands an option? What are the housing types unemployed? What tenure look like? Is land ownership could secure housing get provided when a large percentage of dwellers are innovative can one become to also enable their inclusion? How does settlement is made up of nationals foreign not African covered by housing South policies? How What to do if 40% of the informal area. concerns. There are practical perhaps perhaps different future for this whole wanting to see the informal settlement saturated settlement conversations informal the see to of wanting those be dismantled, and those daring way of integrating people into the fabric of this neighbourhood. P The challenge is not to them but to find displace the best possible church, that Woodlane Village are there to stay. the residents of within prominent leaders gated in the communities and in the sensebut a strong from is emerging

unpredictable, and ultimately causally with a relationship of infinite respect. inexplicable’39. Arendt40 says ” Facing off was all about …every new beginning is by nature contestation; to get rid of ‘these “ a miracle when seen and people’, never to have to face ‘the experienced from the standpoint of the processes it necessarily interrupts. other’ as human. But in the process of facing each other, proximity In this sense… within the context of holds potential to foster mutual processes into which it bursts… each respect. Spatial justice could now beginning corresponds to the be considered, not only legalities religious transcendence of believing or technicalities, but as human in miracles. relationships. This site, since” 2004 became an interruption of dominant spatial In proximity, people start to patterns in the Moreleta area –in respect the steadfast gentle Arndt’s definition, therefore, leadership of Benjamin and his team already a miracle. in the village –the proximity of the Dredges connecting the village THE POWER OF PROXIMITY to legal support, annoyed the church and home owners no end, but Perhaps such a miracle starts with made visible what the police and proximity. Enrique Dussel41 de- city wanted to wipe out at 4am in scribes praxis –the fusion of ac- the morning; the proximity of a tion, reflection and personal provincial government bureaucrat, commitment– as living in a gated community and ...the actualisation of proximity, or respected by his own, challenging “ the experience of being proximate, the wisdom of yet another court for one’s neighbour. Praxis is the attempt or further consideration of experience of constructing the other displacing people, initiating as person, as the end of my action thereby a new kind of social and not as means. We are dealing contract, however tentative it might be; the proximity of the big

39 Arendt, 2005, pp.111-112 40 Arendt, 2005, p.112 41 Dussel, E., 1988, Ethics and Community, New York, Orbis Books, pp.9-10 54

e IRACLE v i M

t c ORDINARY

e l PATIAL

l S

o what Soja

A c – 46

ly rocking apocalyptic apocalyptic rocking ly

”

’

47 w e THROUGH n , LIVING

up current

- a Blackwell, p.96 p.96 Blackwell, - This is a proxim-

MAGINGING I . s 45 e , , breaking into a DAILY t lock lock mock thirdspace 48 -

‘n - i

IRRUPTIONS d

e , London, SPCK Publishing, p.31 Publishing, SPCK London, , m

hop, pop hop,

- , Hoboken, NJ, Wiley Hoboken, , t

a h resistance are formed. are resistance alternatives alternatives are negotiated trailed, and spaces communities of

t ROPHETIC

“ P y

t , Chichester / New York, John Wiley & Sons, p.18 & Sons, John Wiley York, New / , Chichester Imagined Places Imagined The disruptive Woodlane presence Village should perhaps be of embraced the as a prophetic irruption, or insurgency part of the urban landscape traditionally that disallowed the poor from habitation, except if it was for the provision of services labour. or arrangements persist’ i praxis, unmasking falsehoods then and resisting considered that unchangeable.spaces which now render the negotiation is These possibly of alternatives describes as ‘ - and

- ’

43 42 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4659

Davey

73(3), a4659, a4659, 73(3),

of those ‘disrupts and

Is this not Planning for Multicultural Cities Multicultural for Planning ‘of communities

‘overvalorization’ ‘overvalorization’ – RACTURES F

NEGOTIATION ‘the ‘the overvalorization of

RBAN TO

calls calls it, ‘revalorization’ ‘revalorization’ Towards Cosmopolis Cosmopolis Towards

ban Christianity and Global Order: Theological Resources for an Urban Future Urban an for Resources Theological Order: and Global Christianity ban EALING

44 Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real Other and Los Angeles to Journeys Thirdspace: H rich communities were - UNMASKING spatial proximity was always

- HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies Studies/Theological Teologiese HTS

ROM

Davey, A., 2001, p.108 p.108 2001, A., Davey, F Perkinson, J.W., 2017, ‘Jesters, tricksters, taggers and haints: Hipping the church to the Afro the to church the Hipping haints: and taggers tricksters, ‘Jesters, 2017, J.W., Perkinson, Davey, 2001, p.54 2001, Davey, 1996, E.W., Soja, p.54 2001, Davey, Davey, A., 2001, Ur 2001, A., Davey, L., 1998, Sandercock, 48 Detroit’, 45 46 47 42 43 44 and movements who refuse to let existing forge a new collective praxis, as Sandercock There is the fragile possibility to resource hellbent on displacing? space: unmasking the whilst revalorizing that which the overturns existing expectations’. perhaps what is occurring in this in which previously devalued, are unmasked and speaks of the undone. new household of God In this new space people, places and activities contrary to reality together in the here and now? together in going to beg this question: does what it mean to be(come) human village to the big socio church. Such church to the village, and of the

• It forces us to learn how to be Woodlane Village human together in contested spaces The people of Woodlane Village • It offers the promise of a new demonstrate resilience in the n e i g h b o u r h o o d e m b o d y i n g face of insecure tenure and spatial healing, racial healing, severe housing precarity, and and new ways of becoming human great tenacity to retain their together access to the city through • It invites the re-imagination of this choice of location. the church as it becomes Theirs is incarnate in this precinct– aided by the brave stubbornness a lived spatiality, or quiet of two marginal people of politics (cf. Hankins) practised faith who stood with the by backyard dwellers, shack settlement as they took on dwellers and other (homeless) powers much bigger than migrants, (giving) us insight themselves. into the agency they possess, the choices they make, and the Woodlane Village and its neighbours 49,50 reason for those choices . is the intersection and overlapping of hundreds of stories, becoming an These are prophetic irruptions, intersectional space waiting to be perhaps, in four ways: storied anew, collectively, by • It exposes the definite and those sharing proximity. We remain ongoing challenges of spatial a quite onlooker, and participant segregation, resultant socio- of this journey, to see how the economic exclusion and the miracle continues to unfold• vastness of inequality

49 Bailey, A.; De Beer, S. & Hankins, K., 2019, Dwelling as just faith: Migrant housing, precarity and the activities of faith-based organisations in Tshwane and Atlanta, in De Beer, S. (ed), Just faith: global responses to planetary urbanisation, Durbanville, AOSIS, pp.189-222 50 Hankins, K., 2017, ‘Creative democracy and the quiet politics of the everyday’, Urban Geography 38(4), 502–506. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2016.1272197

forum of the Informal forum Woodlane Settle- of the -

a a archive virtual and physical

theological, urban planning, spatial housing perspec- planning, and urban theological,

developing developing archive telling the story and articulating the vision

Woodlane Village meaningfully into localWoodlanethe Villageinto meaningfully community manager appointed to address the various court orders address court various manager appointed the to

economic, - for neighbourhood this for consolidated into consolidated Supporting the local church and Informal Settlement Forum in their efforts to integrate Engaging local stakeholders for a possible space in which to curate a permanent and To To collaborate with Lawyers for Human Rights in following up on the work of courtthe Collecting proposals and research done on the Woodlane Village to be vision of the residents for the area residents of for the vision the tives in as sub participant Studio the The Forum ment informalleadership settlement of Supporting the the area and in the of FBOs the activities some of Visualdocumentation of the Woodlane Village as a classroom for unveiling the intersection of legal, so- of intersection the unveiling for a classroom as Village Woodlane cio

2. 3. 4. 1.

3. 4. 1. 2. 2021 Proposals: Activities: 2020 Activities: focus Strategic suburb upmarket an into settlement informal an of integration the for Advocating Woodlane Village Woodlane

he Centre for Faith and responding to urban social change, Community has been actively more generally, and to street home- involved in engaged research lessness more particularly. PEN, and policy processes related the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, Tto street homelessness, since Yeast City Housing, Sediba Hope 2015. The Centre’s Director, Medical Care, Kitso Lesedi, the Stephan de Beer, has been involved Homeless Upliftment Project, Popup, with creating infrastructure, Kopano Manyano, Youthful Survival services and housing solutions to and Centurion Haven of Hope, all address street homelessness since contributed in diverse ways over the early 1990s. the years, through outreach programmes, The timeline on page 55 provides an psycho-social and health services, overview of the unfolding process transitional housing, family recon- in the City of Tshwane, seeking to ciliation and skills and vocational engage street homelessness in con- training programmes. Shelters like structive ways, to will help facil- Reliable House in Hatfield were itate sustainable pathways out of formed and during Covid-19 new NGOs homelessness. For much longer, such as Tshimologo were birthed. however, various NGOs were formed,

, africa/ - in

– south -

19 risk reduction plan through the -

a collaborative research project, going

–

https://ighomelessness.org/vanguardcity/tshwane

59 owned overnight shelter Struben in Street No.2 -

51 2021 -

signing of social contract to end street homelessness between City of establishing the Tshwane Homelessness Forum to coordinate homeless ser- The The City of Tshwane gains Vanguard City status as one of 12 cities globally, collaborative research process, ‘Pathways out of homelessness’, to gain un- collaborative implementation of the Covid adoptingthe TshwaneHomeless and Policy Strategy hosting the Tshwane Homeless Summit opening first city

ness andness the suburbanization homelessness of Chicago - - Tshwane Homelessness Task Team 2019 ‘Pathways out of Homelessness II’ deeper, and seeking understanding of older homelessness, student homeless- - Tshwane, Tshwane Homelessness Forum, University of Pretoria, and University of South Africa - - committed to significantly reducing street homelessness in key populations collaboration with the Institute of Global Homelessness, DePaul University, - - vices and speak with voice in engaging one local government - derstanding of homelessness in the Tshwane Homeless Policy and Strategy City of Tshwane and preparing draft

2019 2020 2017 2004 2015 2014/ 2015 2008 2015 Institute on Global Homelessness, 2019, Tshwane South Africa, Institute Homelessness, Global on

between NGOs, the City and Universities took place. took place. Universities City and NGOs, the between The The timeline indicates the processes where collaborative interaction accessed 16October 2020accessed 16October 51

n recent years, the Community- interventions. The downside was I Oriented Substance Use that there was no budget attached Programme (COSUP) of the University to the adoption of the Policy, of Pretoria and Doctors without basically rendering the Policy dead Borders strengthened the primary on its feet. health care, harm reduction and hen Covid-19 happened and the mental health support programmes President of South Africa an- with homeless persons. COSUP is a T nounced that temporary shelters had partnership between the City of to be provided to all who were Tshwane and the University’s homeless. He provided no blueprint Department of Family Medicine, and it was up to municipalities to providing harm reduction programmes then discern how to give effect with street-based persons using to the President’s instruction53. substances52. During Covid-19 this was expanded to roll out primary n Tshwane, different partners health care to 1,800 homeless I joined a rollercoaster ride, persons, with very positive effects. working collaboratively in the Tshwane Homelessness Task Team, and more than 25 NGOs, churches and businesses joined hands with the HOMELESSNESS & COVID-19 IN THE CITY OF City to create a rather remarkable TSHWANE response to street homelessness during the Covid-19 lockdown54. A Research and policy work that was significant risk reduction plan was done since 2015, finally resulted being implemented, accommodating in the adoption of the Tshwane more than 1,800 homeless persons Homeless Policy in July of 2019. within a 21-day period in 25 This was very positive as, apart (finally, 27) newly established, from Cape Town, the City of Tshwane temporary, Covid-19 shelters. was now the only city with such a policy to guide its homeless

52 Marcus, T.S., Heese, J., Scheibe, A., Shelly, S., Lalla, S.X. & Hugo, J.F., 2020, Harm reduction in an emergency response to homelessness during South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown, Harm Reduction Journal, Vol.17, 60 (2020) 53 De Beer, S., 2020, Homelessness and Covid-19: political, institutional and theological capacities and priorities, Spotlight Africa, 15 March 2020, https://spotlight.africa/2020/04/15/ homelessness-and-covid-19-political-institutional-and-theological-capacities-and-priorities/, accessed 12 October 2020 54 De Beer, S., 2020, Homelessness and Covid-19: the miracle of Tshwane, Spotlight Africa, 23 April 2020, https://spotlight.africa/2020/04/23/homelessness-and-covid-19-the-miracle- of-tshwane/, accessed 12 October 2020

bed bed - OMELESSNESS H

facilities UT

new bed spaces spaces bed new documented in a

shelter shelter - . ATHWAYS P 55

INDING F 19 is well

- cost accommodation. s a result of new this permanent process 4

, Pretoria, University of Pretoria of Pretoria University Pretoria, , -

converted to integrate facility a for 36 persons, older offering homeless low permanent The process of Covid homelessness and research report that was published in November 2020 A were opened, and two more planning. are in The City has itself to avail 1,200 committed for homeless process is persons currently uncertain. A but new facility that for 19 persons frail coming older from was opened at the homelessness Tau Village, and an old social housing facility was Research Report Research .

social

employment, employment, 19 in the City of Tshwane City the 19 in - accordingly.

RACTURES F

RBAN U

Homelessness and Covid Homelessness be treated be treated

EALING

long term places of care. Un-

health care, harm reduction n all the shelters primary

De Beer, S. & Hugo, J., 2020, 2020, J., & Hugo, S. Beer, De 55 return to the streets. fortunately, as lockdown the levels were reduced some people opted to others found access to to or safe and secure shelter facilities. A large number of people was reconciled with their families, harm reduction programme was much more effective because of access to could now Adherence by substance users to the first time diagnosed with chronic illnesses they were unaware of, and programmes and residents. Many people were for the exit plans for programmes were Some made available. shelters introducing individual development were better at I programmes and psycho

- 19 -

https://ighomelessness.org/covid

based responses, based forthe Centre -

19 Homelessness Resources, Resources, 19 Homelessness - going homelessness research and policy work - day virtualday conference the of National Homeless Network with 250 partici- - launching a Pathways, collaborative operational centre, hosted by the Unit participatingconversationonline in with partner cities the across world, host- Submission to the Presidency, making recommendations a national for policy launch the of Unit Street for Homelessness at theUniversity of Pretoria, to com- launch a National of Homeless Network formalizing the National Homeless Network progressgood is made theby Gauteng Province in drafting a provincial 2

- Streetfor Homelessness and Cosup, to support the City and NGOs in addressing street homelessness in the City of Tshwane more strategically and effectively - ed by the Institute Global of Homelessness in Chicago street homelessness policy - pants across from South Africa, and beyond - development proposal for street homelessness - mititself to on - - -

resources/, accessed 16 resources/, 2020 accessed October 2017 2019 - 2020 Faith and Community the table here below. reflected in also participated in other processes, Apart from the veryApart Tshwane local Institute of Global Homelessness, 2019, Homelessness, Covid Global Institute of

56 homelessness

ONE

TIME

A -

OMELESSNESS the - AT H

in SHWANE STREET - ’

T OF

share UT - OF

ENDING PERSON ITY

AND ONE

ATHWAYS

THE P

19, LHR created a IN

AND

INDING F REVENTING ‘P

https://www.iol.co.za/ios/news/homeless COMMUNITY HOMELESSNESS

thereby preventing homelessness. further During Covid helpline which assisted more than With the support of Comic Relief, the Centre or Faith and Community is a research partner of and the Tshwane documentation Leadership Foundation and of for Lawyers Human Rights, in this project. particular The aim of contribute this to the project prevention ending is and of to street homelessness measurable in Tshwane ways. Leadership Whereas provides Foundation specific the with services Yeast City and, Housing, solutions housing to help address homelessness, street Lawyers Rights (LHR) in engages litigation, for Human education and information, to help prevent illegal evictions, and homelessness one person, and time.family at a That, by the way, one is similar to projectcollaborative we are a part the title of as of the a the City of Tshwane. Community in Centre for Faith and -

, 7 November 2020, 2020, November 7 , 19, - root

The Star The

ETWORK 57 N

3052b90481d4 19. - - RACTURES F a02b

- 4a23 - RBAN advocacy U

487d - OMELESSNESS

EALING H

1155209f -

press statements and wrote to he Network issued a number of

Perrier, R., 2020, Homeless share in the conversation, conversation, in the share Homeless 2020, R., Perrier, ATIONAL

57 conversation N to show real impact, ending makers in crafting street homelessness that responses can start to support organisations role but to also grass policy The National Homeless Network has the potential to provide a key sharing, joint research projects, and collective cessful virtual meeting, solidifying conference itself as platform and a for networking, resource In November of 2020, the National Homeless Network a veryhosted suc- issues issues faced by persons during Covid street homeless National Disaster Team Task on more than one occasion,to highlight the T the President’s Office and the country. to share good (and bad) practices from different cities across the weekly in a virtual call, both to prepare advocacy documents but also friends, developed into a but small important network. During Covid members of the network checked in What started slowlyWhat started as a network of

UNIT FOR STREET HOMELESSNESS 1,000 people who faced illegal evictions, and the Tshwane Leadership During Covid-19, it became clear Foundation opened two permanent that the Centre spends an housing facilities for older extraordinary amount of time and homeless persons, as well as two energy on issues related to street new temporary Covid-19 shelters for homelessness, out of proportion to women and men. With the Department the availability of staff and of Geography at the University of resources for this purpose. At the Pretoria, homeless shelters and same time, we acknowledged the services; contested land; land used critical necessity for this work, by recyclers or reclaimers; and realizing that available research vacant land or buildings that are on street homelessness in South state-owned, are mapped, both to Africa and on the continent of provide a quick overview of the Africa was rather sporadic and not relationship between available c o n t i n u o u s . W e w e r e g i v e n shelters and the concentration of permission to launch a Unit for homeless persons, but also to Street Homelessness, to be housed support strategic processes ena- in the Department of Practical bling access to land. Theology, and to be managed by the The Centre documents these processes, Centre for Faith and Community. and supports practical intervention This Unit will through evidence-based research. (i) do research and policy work, This collaborative project, just as supporting local, provincial and o u r p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n t h e national processes, and Homelessness Task Team, are (ii) manage the Pathways operational concrete expressions of the centre, with the Community-Oriented methodology of the Urban Studio, Substance Use Programme in the De- using the city and actual partment of Family Medicine at the challenges, contestations and University of Pretoria, providing responses, as classroom. support to the City of Tshwane and local NGOs, in their operationali-

OMELESSNESS H

UT O

• ATHWAYS P

INDING F

homelessness; with disseminating learning and research the view findings, of sharing good practices, and influencing policy, and strategy investments that might what works, and innovative incubate scale new approaches to prevent and end street homelessness

RACTURES F

RBAN U

EALING H

occurred over many years context of in seeking to the understand, address and overcome street The Unit consolidating will learning be that a place of zation of Strategy. Policy and the Tshwane Homeless

he Urban Studio embodies of vulnerability more than ever close collaboration between before, it also inspired innovative

a research Centre at the responses to vulnerability, seeking University and a local faith to build resilience and overcome Tbased organization committed to all odds. It did so, because urban social change. The two entities perhaps Arundhati Roy is right, have different knowledges, experiences when she says ‘Nothing can be worse than a and positionalities. In sharing return to normality.’ Normality is abnor- these with each other, but also mal, cruel and exclusive for the with the sites reflected upon in majority of urban dwellers in our this report, rich reservoirs of society. Therefore, ‘pandemics have resourcefulness open up, from which forced humans to break with the past and imag- local communities and their leaders can drink. ine their world anew.’

his is indeed a case where 1+1 Inside this pandemic, and accompanying T is not 2 but multiplied manifold various contested sites in and times. The work of the Urban Studio is around the City of Tshwane, it is not to become grass-root practitioners ever so clear: without new imaginaries, or local community activists, but the (ab)normality of the current to support grass-root action and status quo cannot hold for much local community activism, through longer. We need to imagine our engaged, collaborative research institutions, our humanity and our that can inform and legitimize local urban fabric anew. The Urban Studio action; but also through documenting seeks for clues as to what such and disseminating local narratives imaginaries might look like, in ways that can contribute to debunk learning from the hidden threads myths, expose urban falsehoods and and nets that connect disconnected help shape new, alternative or more local communities, and that keep inclusive urban imaginaries. fragile local places strangely alive, and strong, in spite of If Covid-19 has exposed the depths their fragility•