This newsletter looks at the poor communities in the City of Cape Town. While Cape Town is a thriving world-class city on one hand, there are poor communities who have limited access, if any, to basic services.

There were over 140 000 households in the City of Cape Town living in informal dwellings or shacks

. Of these, 77% lived in informal settlements while the rest lived in shacks in backyards. Many households are without basic services such as water, sanitation facilities, and electricity.

Only 539 893, or 69% of households in Cape Town have access to water inside their houses. Some 111 258, or 14% of households have access to water via a community stand. More than 58 000 of these households use a community stand which is more than 200 metres from their homes. The remaining 22 348 households use boreholes, spring water, rainwater tanks, dams, rivers or streams, and other water sources.

Some 664 700 households or 85% of households have access to a flush toilet. Of the remaining 15%, some 55 000, or 7% of all households have no sanitation facilities at all. Some 34 296, or 4% of households use bucket latrines, while the remaining 23 230, or 3% of households use flush septic tanks, chemical toilets, VIP toilets, and pit latrines.

Adequate sanitation facilities cannot exist without sufficient water resources. Households without water and sanitation facilities are often vulnerable to health risks.

While only 52 708, or 7% are without access to electricity, it is concerning that some 87 141, or 11% of households do not use electricity for lighting. Some 67 070, or 9% of households use paraffin, while the remaining 19 904 use candles (16 015), gas (2 773), solar (595), and other resources. This indicates that while people may have access to electricity, many of them do not use it fully.

These statistics on living conditions are in line with the City’s poverty rate of 23.6%. This means that more than 183 000 households live in poverty. The poverty rate used is the proportion of households with incomes below R800 per month.

Financial poverty can ultimately be eradicated through jobs. The City’s unemployment rate was 16.8% in 2007. However, the unemployment rate in the African population in Cape Town was 20.4%, compared with 14.4% among the coloured population, 6% in the Indian population, and 3% for the white population.

While the City of Cape Town has continually performed better than most other municipalities, poverty and inequality remain prevalent.

The municipal outreach project aims to provide extensive research, such as that used in the above analysis, to municipalities covered by the Municipal Outreach Project. This will be done by means of publications, the project website, and workshops. A monthly publication called Fast Facts for Local Government (F3LG) is sent to local councillors, officials, and development organisations in the eight municipalities covered by the project. A weekly newsletter is posted on the project website on Fridays, and e-mailed to project beneficiaries. The annual Survey, published by the Institute, will be posted to municipalities and extracts posted on the project website.

-Nthamaga Kgafela