Cape Town's Cissie Gool House is a global model for community resilience and empowerment

Residents living in the Cissie Gool House (former Woodstock Hospital) protest outside Cape Town High Court on April 22, 2021 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

By Visiting Housing Activists

5 Feb 2025

Cissie Gool House was one of the highlights of our trip to Cape Town and we wanted to share our reflections with you and our support for the families who now call this community their home. Over 1,000 people, including women and children, live there.

We are a group of place-makers from across the world who in December had the pleasure and honour to visit the beautiful city of Cape Town. We were able to spend time visiting many significant sites, enjoying learning about the history and culture. These included Bo-Kaap, Philippi Village and Cissie Gool House. Cissie Gool House was one of the highlights of our trip to Cape Town and we wanted to share our reflections with you and our sincere support for the families who now call this community their home. Over 1,000 people, including women and children, live there.

We felt inspired by the love and connection we felt when we arrived at Cissie Gool House. Being surrounded by the photos, the stories and the banners residents have made together over the years was a deeply moving experience. They have worked tirelessly to support and rebuild their community, following on from loss of their own homes through processes of gentrification and lack of affordable housing models in the city.

The sense of neighbourliness is evident and the sense of community clearly present with regular meetings, skilled residents helping to fix and maintain the building, families growing food together and children playing together. These families, these residents of your beautiful city, have created a community that is inspiring to all of us from across the world. We have taken the learning back with us to Germany, Turkey, Ireland, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Children play in front of Cissie Gool House, previously the Woodstock Hospital. (Photo: Tessa Knight)

Signage at Cissie Gool House. (Photo: Kyra Wilkinson)

Their words and actions, their resilience and love have travelled home with us. They are a shining example of how to build and care for a community. It will shape how we see the world, our communities and our work going forward. These residents love their city, they have created a homeplace there, beside the mountains and sea. We firmly believe that your great city belongs to everyone, not just the privileged or those who visit from afar on holiday.

We feel strongly that visitors to your great city want to see and feel the genuine Cape Town, and want to hear these stories of the history and the importance of people to the city. They want to feel the heart of the city along with seeing its absolute beauty.

A German participant from our group reflected: “Having myself grown up in what used to be an occupied housing complex in Berlin, Germany, I was particularly moved to visit Cissie Gool House. The place and community I come from was legal after several years of negotiation with the city of Berlin and is still today part of a housing association, where the community governs their own buildings and shapes community practices, rules and structures. What the residents are working towards is possible! I was very moved meeting the community and hearing their stories, as it reminds me of the work, care, resistance and resilience it took my mother and other occupants to establish our community back in the 1980s. A place that remains a source of inspiration for alternative ways of housing and home-making that I believe in.”

A participant from Turkey reflected: “My parents were members of a housing cooperative which they established, and we developed our own housing. In fact, these housing cooperatives are in a district called Batıkent, which is the district where I was born and grew up. A total of 50,000 houses were produced in this way. Batıkent is a district in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. The working-class stronghold grew so successful over time and is now as big as a municipality. The whole district is one of the most secure, affordable and organised examples of housing in Ankara. This housing project was both a participatory process and a unique example of working-class families building their own homes. Years later, this house became the community house of my organisation that advocates for affordable housing in Turkey.”

A woman hangs her washing at Cissie Gool House. There are a number of small businesses there, including a laundromat. (Photo: Matthew Hirsch)

Murals at the entrance of "K-Walk" Murals at the entrance of 'K-Walk' at Cissie Gool House. (Photo: Kyra Wilkinson)

Art and pictures in the hall at Cissie Gool House. (Photo: Kyra Wilkinson)

Residents living at the Cissie Gool House protest outside the Western Cape Division of the High Court on 22 April 2021. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

There are global examples of how this kind of community can thrive, grow and create strength in the places they exist through supporting the empowerment of strong community development and place-making. Across the world we witness the success of cooperative housing structures which advocate for co-design and the governance of space and communal areas where people come together in community.

In visiting these families we were very mindful of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 27, ratified by South Africa in 1995: “Governments should make sure families have access to good housing, healthy food and warm clothing.” This community embodies and demonstrates how basic needs and the best interests of children are being met by this housing solution, and it is important to support and sustain this.

We will speak with pride and share the learning of what we have seen here and we will keep this place and its people in our hearts going forward. Please know that we stand with the residents in solidarity, now and always, and we ask for support for them to be able to continue to create this community and continue to inspire others around the world.

Thank you for sharing the extraordinary gift of your city with us, it lives in the hearts of all of us. DM

Signed:

Grace Cichanga, South Africa

Emre Guzel, Turkey

Zerhu Hlatshwayo, South Africa

Evlin Huseyinoglu, Turkey

Sinethemba Kata, South Africa

Lihle Mantashe, South Africa

Isaiah Mombilo, South Africa

Njabulo Ndlovu, South Africa

Sanelisiwe Nyaba, South Africa

Edda Kruse Rosset, Germany

Nomshado Twala, South Africa

Benjamin Rodrigues Kafka, Germany

Lisa Mooney, Ireland

AnuOluwapo Adelakun, Nigeria

Katra Sambili, Kenya

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