War vets stole my home, says mom
A distraught Ingrid Deare has been wandering around homeless with her two small children for years after her allocated home was invaded by war veterans.
|||Durban - A sickly single mother who is living with her two children in a cramped outbuilding on the Bluff is desperate to get the house in Cornubia that she was officially promised - and allocated - five years ago.
Ingrid Deare said she had been “up and down” to the eThekwini Municipality’s housing department and the KZN Department of Human Settlements over the past few years trying to find out why she had never been given the opportunity to move into the house she had been allocated in the multibillion-rand development near uMhlanga in 2012.
Deare has a print-out that she received from the eThekwini Municipality’s housing department which lists the project number and the site number of the house she was allocated in Cornubia, with the words “approved” written under “current status”.
The Daily News has a copy of the document.
Deare said she was initially notified in 2012 that her application had been successful, but she had lost the original letter.
“We were supposed to move into our house, but war veterans invaded it,” Deare said.
She said, to her shock, officials later advised her that a house she was apparently allocated as a replacement, had been given to another family.
She said people who she knew personally, who had joined the housing list years after her, had already moved into their homes.
Deare said staff at the city’s housing department and the KZN Human Settlements Department had been kind to her and shown her compassion, providing her with groceries on occasion, but nobody seemed to have the power to resolve her problem.
“I go to them about three times a week, and they tell me I must just stop coming,” she said.
Deare said she had also complained to the Office of the Public Protector, and that staff at the Durban office had tried to resolve her case - without success.
“We have been pushed from shelter to shelter. I have been homeless and was living on the beachfront with my children, and now I am using my disability grant to rent a small place from a kind man on the Bluff who helped me. I owe him rent from last month, and now he has given me notice and I have to be out by month-end (October). I don’t blame him, but I don’t know where to go,” she said.
Deare added that the small outbuilding was unhealthy and damp, as water leaked from the toilet.
“I just want my house before I close my eyes. I think I am wasting my time, because I run upstairs and downstairs and all over the place,” she said.
eThekwini Municipality spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said the city was aware of Deare’s complaint and empathised with her plight.
Mthethwa said Deare would receive her house before the end of the year.
“The matter was investigated and investigations revealed that when the complainant’s house in Cornubia Phase 1A was ready for occupation in October 2014, 43 units were invaded, and this included hers,” Mthethwa said. “The invasions have been reported to law enforcement and are being dealt with accordingly. In the interest of the well-being of the rightful beneficiaries, we allocated them with new houses in Cornubia Phase 1B.
“The matter is being given the highest level of attention and the complainant’s house will be ready before the end of this year,” Mthethwa said.
Deare was relieved to hear the news on Friday, but was still concerned about finding shelter for her family for this month , while she waits for her new home.
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