Elderly residents caught in housing crisis after evictions

The provincial social development department is caught in a conundrum as it has to find an alternative home for two elderly pensioners who were rejected by their families. This comes after their previous home,Ndiphelele Yehova Old Age Home in eBhongweni, was instructed to reunite 10 of the reported 22 residents with their families by Friday last week or face legal action. The old age home, which previously operated from a nine-bedroom house in eBompini, was among the structuresdemolished in Novemberduring evictions by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which owns the property.

After the demolitions, the elderly residents were moved into a three-bedroomed house at eBhongweni. The Eastern Cape department of social development had issued anultimatumto the facility’s owner, Mandilakhe Mayiphume, saying she had just over a fortnight to reunite residents with their families or face possible legal action. The department determined the home is operating without proper registration and does not meet required legal and safety standards.

However on Friday, the department confirmed that the deadline had been extended to the end of February. “This arrangement was made to accommodate the request by the centre manager to be given extra time to contact families. Secondly, she complained that she would not have the refund for all the people as it was in the middle of the month,” provincial social development spokesperson Mpumzi Zuzile said.

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Zuzile further revealed that although the centre is not registered as an NPO in terms of NPO ACT 71 of 1997, the manager informed the officials that she recently applied for an NPO certificate and has been issued with an application number, and the status of the application is still pending. Zuzile said the social workers conducted the follow-up visit on Monday last week, and they agreed that Mayiphume can accommodate about 12 people as per the available space, excluding the garage, while contacting the families until the end of February. He said the elderly people had to be removed from the garage due to hygiene and health reasons. Speaking to the paper, Mayiphume said her attempts to reunite the elderly with their families were unsuccessful.

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