Progress at last on Woodstock Hospital occupation?

A sign on the entrance gate to the old Woodstock Hospital where about 900 people live. Photo: Matthew Hirsch

• The Woodstock Hospital has been occupied since 2017.
• It has been a focal point of campaigns for affordable and social housing close to the Cape Town city centre.
• The occupation has been marked by acrimony between the City on the one hand and the occupiers and housing activists on the other.
• But recent developments suggest the City and the occupiers are beginning to find common ground.
• The City has indicated it will release the property for affordable or social housing.
• A sticking point is whether all the current occupiers will qualify for housing.

In 2017 a handful of housing activists organised the occupation of the old, out-of-use Woodstock Hospital. They wanted to make a public point about what they argued was the City’s failed promise to deliver housing for working people close to the city centre. Seven years later, about 900 people live in the building which they have renamed Cissie Gool House.

The occupation has been run by Reclaim the City and supported by Ndifuna Ukwazi, both housing activist organisations. There has been tension and public sparring between these organisations and the City since the occupation began. The City’s position is that it is an illegal occupation which is preventing the development of social housing. The activist view is that the City was not serious about social housing near the city centre until the occupations of the Woodstock Hospital and the old Helen Bowden Nurses Home near the Waterfront.

There was also heightened tension in 2021 when the Western Cape High Court granted an order that allowed the City to conduct a survey of the residents.

But there is finally a possible breakthrough that may please both sides. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has said he is open to meeting with the occupying residents and possible incremental development at the old Woodstock Hospital. (You can see a video of their encounter at a recent First Thursday event hosted by the City and Province here.) The City has committed to developing social housing at the Woodstock Hospital. But there are some sticking points.

Reclaim the City has welcomed the potential incremental development of social housing at the hospital. But they argue that this can be done without the displacement of its current residents.

The activist group has also welcomed Hill-Lewis’s commitment to meet with residents. But, they say, there have been several attempts to engage with the City since 2017 and these fell through.

Last month, GroundUp reported on the City’s decision to go ahead with the public participation process to release the site for affordable housing. During a Council meeting, Hill-Lewis described the site as one of Cape Town’s “biggest social housing opportunities”.

Not everyone will qualify

Hill-Lewis told GroundUp that one proposal is that some of the occupants can be moved into the courtyard and garden area temporarily while there is incremental development of the building. He said that as part of the public participation process, the City would be engaging with the occupants.

But he also sounded a warning. “Once it’s finished, you take those who qualify back into the building as beneficiaries,” he explained. “Not everyone in that building qualifies. That’s going to be an issue because not everyone who moves out is going to be able to move back in. It is one of the attractive options. It has its benefits but it has its downsides as well.”

“We cannot be pushed into a situation where everyone who is there qualifies because they are there.”

Reclaim the City leader and Cissie Gool House resident Bevil Lucas said the City commissioned a report in 2019 where incremental development is mentioned.

“One of the recommendations is that development can take place on an incremental basis without displacing people. We really hope that they will honour that commitment and they afford the community the opportunity to participate in the process.”

A few important events helped move things forward between the City and the occupiers. The City put out a tender for a facilities manager for the occupation, and a heritage impact assessment was done for the building. The residents then worked with an architect to propose a design for affordable housing at the hospital which they presented at a public event. Lucas said that this design process allowed the Woodstock community to propose possible solutions for housing in the neighbourhood.

Lucas expressed some scepticism of the City’s promises to engage with the residents, but said the hospital residents were in the process of responding to the City so that engagement could take place. “At the moment, it’s just a public representation that the City has made and nothing beyond that,” he said.

Residents at the hospital have organised a public meet and greet on Saturday to “showcase the ongoing struggle for housing justice in Cape Town”. The event will also include a tour of the occupation.

There will also be a similar event at Helen Bowden Nurses Home on the same day.

The activists say these events will offer a “unique opportunity for the public to witness and support the fight for equitable access to housing in Cape Town”.

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