After surviving the devastating April 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods and waiting more than three years for permanent housing, 17 flood victims, including children, are once again homeless and sleeping on a pavement outside a building on Point Road in Durban after being evicted from their temporary accommodation.
The group has spent the past four nights exposed to the cold winter weather after being ordered to leave the privately owned building where they had been living since December 2022. The building was one of several Temporary Emergency Accommodation (TEA) facilities rented by the eThekwini Municipality to shelter families whose homes were destroyed during the floods.
Their eviction follows the relocation of qualifying flood victims to the newly refurbished Montclair Lodge, which was purchased by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements from Transnet for R33 million. The property transfer was completed on 31 May 2025 and the facility was converted into permanent accommodation for qualifying flood victims and other displaced residents.
However, not everyone qualified for housing assistance.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Mandla Nsele said all occupants of temporary emergency accommodation underwent a beneficiary verification process before relocations took place on 28 and 29 June.
He said 146 beneficiaries were found not to qualify for government housing assistance because they exceeded the qualifying income threshold, had previously benefited from a government housing subsidy, had voluntarily left the temporary accommodation or because their personal circumstances had changed.
Nsele said the affected beneficiaries were issued with notices to vacate following the verification process in March this year and again during the relocation process in June.
“Many of those who received eviction notices secured alternative accommodation by renting backyard rooms elsewhere,” he said.
“But some have remained outside the building because they say they cannot afford to rent elsewhere or have nowhere else to go.”
Among those now sleeping outside is Nompumelelo Malemela and her eight-year-old son.
Malemela said her shack in Dakota Informal Settlement in Isipingo was washed away during the April 2022 floods.
Originally from the Eastern Cape, she moved to Durban in 2017 to work as a domestic worker. She said she was excluded from the housing assistance programme because she already owns an RDP house in the Eastern Cape, where other members of her family currently live.
Despite this, she said she has no relatives in Durban who can accommodate her and her son.
“I received my eviction notice on 22 June, but I couldn’t return to the Eastern Cape because it was already the middle of the school year,” she said.
“My son is a learner at Addington Primary School. Moving him in the middle of the year would have been very difficult.”
Malemela said she and her son have been sleeping outside the building since Monday without access to basic facilities.
Point Road building manager Xolani Mkhize confirmed that the remaining families had been evicted and were now sleeping outside the building.
He said he had been instructed by the eThekwini Municipality to evict the remaining occupants after the last group of qualifying flood victims was relocated from the building on 29 June.
Mayoral representative Njabulo Zungu said the municipality was aware of the situation and would engage the Human Settlements Department.
“We are aware of the matter and will consult with the Human Settlements Department so that they can come up with a solution,” said Zungu.
