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South Africa

Johannesburg CBD fire — What it looks like inside the city's hijacked buildings

Housing shortages are one of the biggest problems faced by the underprivileged in Johannesburg — fuelled by rapid population growth. The City of Johannesburg is facing a 500,000-strong housing backlog, with at least 100,000 people living homeless, according to the city’s last count five years ago.
Johannesburg CBD fire — What it looks like inside the city's hijacked buildings Platinum Place missed a roof and all the interior fittings were gone by the time new owners took over. (Photo: JPOMA)
Daily Maverick
By Daily Maverick
31 Aug 2023
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On Thursday, 31 August, in the early morning hours, a fire broke out at a five-storey hijacked building on the corner Alberts and Delvers streets in the Johannesburg city center.

At least 73 people died in the fire, with scores more injured. The building is said to have had as many as 200 people living in it.

Daily Maverick has reported extensively on Joburg's inner-city housing crisis. The photos we've taken, as well as others supplied by the Johannesburg Property Owners & Managers Association, expose the circumstances people live in in the dilapidated hijacked buildings.

Also read: Bad to worse - Massive gap in rightful housing and basic service delivery for Joburg's inner-city low-income residents

joburg housing nugget street Makeshift boards and curtains divide the space where a community of more than 200 waste pickers reside in the Express building in Nugget Street. The occupants are both South African and foreign nationals. (Photo: Michelle Banda)



joburg housing express What used to be a toilet in the Express building is now a locked room. Occupants survive in the building with overcrowding and a lack of electricity, water supply and sanitation. (Photo: Michelle Banda)



joburg housing crisis Nqobile Zulu, a resident at the Express building in Johannesburg, leads us inside the dilapidated structure. (Photo: Michelle Banda)



joburg housing city Broken windows inside a 21-unit city-owned abandoned apartment building. (Photo: Michelle Banda)



Read more: Mind the gap — solutions to Joburg’s inner-city housing crisis hamstrung by budget constraints

Fifty families have crammed into a ruined building at the corner of Alexander and Market Streets in inner-city Johannesburg. (Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro)



Platinum Place, a hijacked building in Johannesburg Platinum Place, a formerly hijacked building in Doornfontein, after the illegal tenants had left showed the inhuman conditions in which these people lived. (Photo: JPOMA)



Platinum Place lift shaft Platinum Place's lift shaft had become a rubbish tip. (Photo: JPOMA)



Platinum Place's roof was missing Platinum Place missed a roof and all the interior fittings were gone when new owners eventually took over. (Photo: JPOMA)

Comments (4)

Jane Crankshaw Sep 3, 2023, 07:37 AM

There is absolutely no excuse for people who can’t be bothered to clean up after themselves - no matter how poor or disadvantaged! Amazing that the Municipality is prepared to let a once proud city implode like this. Everyone - the Mayor, Municipality and the illegal squatters - should be ashamed of themselves.

laraw082@gmail.com Sep 3, 2023, 08:01 PM

That's it in a nutshell.

henry.jooste Sep 2, 2023, 12:20 PM

I do not want to shift the blame from the current leadership in Johannesburg - but - we worked in the Hillbrow, Berea and central Johannesburg area during the 1980s and highlighted this exact same problem back then to the city council. This is a VERY old problem. Nobody has had the political will to deal with it. It does make one wonder what is going on behind the scene. Who is making the money? The simplistic answer is criminals, but is it that simple?

Gustav Diedericks Sep 2, 2023, 11:47 AM

Why is Daily Maverick so disingenuous about the people in these buildings? The vast majority are illegally in this country, and these buildings have been hijacked by criminals to make money off of these illegals. In addition, this situation was created by the very woke, like Daily Maverick reporters, who give money to NGOs, many of them foreign, who impose their views on our laws and force the ANC to concede certain "human rights" on people who do not deserve them. These people then "enforce" these laws upon the ANC and other property owners when they try to get rid of these invaders. The fire and its subsequent outcome are but one of many more attrocities to come thanks to the Woke and their psychotic push for "human rights". Stop blaming only the ANC. Do some introspection upon yourselves!

Denise Smit Sep 2, 2023, 09:25 AM

If I were living in Gauteng I will be very scared. Nothing maintained, corruption ++++, cadre deployment, a whole rich city rotten to the bone, on the brink of implosion or explosion. And politicking standing in the way of everything. Fikile Mbalula saying that Gauteng has been run by the DA since 2016. Really!!!!!!! That is the one thing the ANC/EFF know how to do is blaming others for things falling apart. You are the cause of the destruction ANC/EFF nobody else. Denise Smit

Fanie Rajesh Ngabiso Sep 2, 2023, 02:49 PM

Yes I agree 100% . To everyone and anyone out there with a brain - vote DA!