The Roots of Homelessness

Abstract

The evidence from a survey of one free-standing squatter settlement on the Witwatersrand suggests that squatting in the south of Johanneshurg is not primarily a result of the influx of rural immigrants since the abolition of influx control laws in 1986. Although most of the squatters in the sample were born in rural a reas, the vast majority of rural immigrants had urbanised during the 1970s. The timing of the urbanisation of the rural-born squatters, as well as the reasons that they gave for moving to the Witwatersrand, correspond to the findings of other studies on social change in the rural areas of South Africa. A sizeable proportion of the sample were, however, born in urban areas, mostly within the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging complex. Both rural- and urban-born squatters in this sample have failed to secure fonnal accommodation because of the absolute shortage of housing and because they belong to a class of largely unskilled workers whose income and unemployment rate exclude them from all forms of rented and formal accommodation.