Economic Decline and the Housing Crisis

To reverse the process of urbanisation, the government drastically reduced fund-ing for housing for the African population outside the bantustans. Between 1968 and 1976, the budget was cut by 80 percent from R14.5 million to R2.7 million. Government loans began to dry up and by 1976, a circular informed the Vaal Triangle Administration Board (VTAB), the successor of the Sebokeng Manage-ment Board, that loans for lower-income housing were no longer available. This withdrawal of central government subsidies and loans had dire consequences for administration boards’ ability to build new houses for the rapidly expanding population, leading to a severe shortage in housing that made itself felt from the early 1970s. As we have seen, officials of the VTAB had recognised the unfeasi-bility of relocations to Qwa Qwa, and the building of more housing in the urban townships therefore became a pressing concern.

By that time, the average number of persons in a household was 6.5, half of the houses were overcrowded and one out of six households accommodated ten people or more. Dire financial circumstances, and in some instances pressure from local authorities, forced many to take in lodgers. Overcrowding and the smallness of the houses left almost no room for privacy. Township spaces were a ‘private world without privacy’ where ‘living took place in the street, in the yard’s open space or within earshot of either’, as Belinda Bozzoli notes. While this certainly forged strong social relations within families, it also impacted on the way in which politics was discussed and opposition voiced. And it nurtured the seeds of resistance against inferior living conditions in a new generation of young activists. Roy Matube, who joined the Congress of South African Students during the 1980s, recalls the effect of deteriorating living conditions on his political consciousness: ‘[I wanted] to fight for what is right. So that people live in decent houses. Bigger and decent houses.’

The economic boom of the 1960s began to stagnate during the early 1970s, when the growth rate dropped from 7 to 5 percent during the financial year 1971/72. The steel industry, with the South African Iron and Steel Corporation (ISCOR) in Vanderbijlpark being a major production site, suffered from decreased demand and retrenchment, owing to a drop in the steel price and growing interest rates.