Access and Accessibility
[Disclaimer: this is not a review of a long-lost Jane Austen novel!]
A website isn’t going to save you from eviction any more than a hammer is going to build you a house. They are both tools that must be used by people to achieve their desired outcome. Tools don’t do the job for us (not even robots and AI act completely on their own) but they can make it a lot easier. The aim of EVICTIONS.ORG.ZA is to provide knowledge of the legal process, break it down into understandable steps, and then give practical actions that tenants can take to oppose their eviction in court. We provide the tools and tenants need to provide the agency. This is the core of OpenUp’s (OU) theory of change: inform, empower, and activate.
Sadly, but understandably, many eviction cases are not winnable for tenants, but this does not mean they shouldn’t oppose their eviction. This immediately seems counter-intuitive, which is why this knowledge is so important. There are a range of outcomes on the eviction spectrum and understanding the process gives tenants the power to push the needle further in their favour.
One of those outcomes is getting enough time to vacate the property so that they are not evicted into homelessness. Eviction can be both a cause and a result of poverty, and unfair and unlawful evictions where tenants are not given a reasonable amount of time to leave, according to their personal circumstances, exacerbate this downward spiral. While a tenant who cannot pay often disturbs the income of landlords, an eviction into homelessness devastates lives and potentially impacts generations of lives to come.
“Access to knowledge” and “knowledge that is accessible” are two different things. The first means that people simply have access to it in whatever format it comes. The second means it’s in a format that the people who need it most can understand and act on accordingly. Almost anyone can go online and read the Prevention of Illegal Eviction (PIE) Act, which regulates how lawful evictions should be carried out, but then what? Written in legalese, the document is almost meaningless to the thousands of tenants who are evicted in South Africa each year. We have access to the law, but it’s not accessible.
From our work at the courts speaking to families facing eviction, what is always immediately clear is that once they find out they are being evicted, they have very little idea of what to do.
“We got a visit from the Sheriff of the Court. He came with these eviction notices…This was really a surprise to us, we didn’t know what to do and we didn’t expect it because [the landlord] never communicated with us…” — Mrs J, from Woodstock
Those with the means can immediately call a lawyer and get support and direction — but you have to pay. A lot. Many without the means don’t know that they have housing rights enshrined in the Constitution and that several free legal advice and representation organisations are available to them. Just knowing this and being pointed in the right direction through OU, Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City’s work, has been a huge help to tenants and the outcome of their cases.
We want the website to provide a similar service to the one played by RTC, NU and OU at court because while nothing beats face-to-face support, an easy to navigate website can be spread to every court and every tenant facing eviction in the country. It can provide services on a scale that our local anti-eviction community workers can’t. It also means that civil society around the country can access our resources and use them in their local context.
The website is designed specifically to use as little data as possible because we know that in South Africa mobile data is prohibitively expensive and this is an often invisible barrier to justice for the poor. Our work moving forward is to make the content as useful and accessible as possible and to build tools that complement the information and make the administrative leg-work of opposing an eviction easier for tenants. The website is just the start of what we hope will grow into a comprehensive resource for all South African tenants.
If you would like more information about OpenUp’s eviction work email shaun@openup.org.za.
