ABSTRACT

Despite the South African government's official position that it is no longer responsible for providing shelter, other than in exceptional cases to the indigent (South Africa 1983: para. 8.4), state involvement in housing persists and has even expanded in the last decade. The rate of government building of housing remains constant and the amount of state money allocated to shelter has increased through state-subsidized home ownership and informal housing. However, the administration of housing finance in the declining years of apartheid continues to favour whites over blacks, and the rich over the poor. As a result the most notable features of the 1980s urban landscape are vast informal shack settlements, the development of an elite African housing market, the persistent oversupply of housing for whites relative to the gross shortage of African shelter, and the involvement of the tricameral parliament in the supply of housing for coloureds and Indians. The housing question in South Africa is more politically charged now than it has been at any time since the Second World War.