Pages

20091124

Whites growing poor, homeless the fastest

 

“Whites’ moving into shacks grew by 309%, blacks by 25% – SA Institute of Race Relations… which however also claims that ‘whites still are the richest’… so which is it?

 

Unemployed Afrikaner teacher, homeless yet has no rights to state-housing  Johannesburg. Nov 24 2009 -- Since 1996, the proportion of ‘whites’ moving into informal dwellings has grown the fastest of all population groups. “Whites” are a minority of less than 3-million, blacks number 40-million. Thus it’s also logical that black shackdwellers outnumber ‘white’, mostly Afrikaner shackdwellers by about 300 to one.

These statistics appear in this year's edition of the South African Survey, published by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR).  http://www.sairr.org.za/press-office/press-releases/survey-8-press-release-12-11-2009-2.pdf

In the period under review, the number of ‘white’ households living in informal dwellings rose by 197%;  Indians households registered growth of 92%,; the number of ‘white’ households living in open-space shacks grew by 309% while those moving into backyard shacks rose by 101%. For Indians the corresponding figures were 100% and 81%.

This confirms the 2008 census by the Helping Hand charity of Solidarity trade union, which had found and registered for charity and food-aid programmes some  than 800,000 Afrikaners who were living in ‘informal housing’ by that year in about 102 squatter camps and backyard-settlements comprised only of Afrikaners.

AfrikanersAmongForcedRemovalTelkomBuildingTheStarArticle In contrast, the number of black households residing in informal dwellings grew by a relatively low 25%, albeit from figures of 1,386 637 to 1,732,604 in the period under review. For coloured households, the increase was from 57,582 to 62,365, or by 8%.

Picture: many Afrikaner families are evicted from their rental or purchased homes because such  ‘whites’ are barred from the labour market by a large variety of ANC-laws under its ‘black-economic empowerment’ propaganda campaign. Despite his parents’ higher educational levels and job skills, evicted Afrikaner children such as the child on the right now has moved to the very bottom of the food-chain and moving into a lifetime of destitution and hunger, due the ANC’s denial of basic rights to ‘whites’ such as food-aid, government benefits or cheap state-housing.

-----------------------------

The SAIRR report notes that overall, “there was a significantly higher growth in the number of Afrikaner (they refer to this ethnic minority as a generic ‘white’ group) households residing in backyard shacks (46%) as opposed to those who erected their structures in open spaces (16%) between 1996 and 2007. This might be an attempt in some instances to ‘circumvent eviction laws’,  the SAIRR writes. In the case of the Indian and ‘white’ populations they experienced more growth in open-space shacks than in backyard informal dwellings mainly because this former home-owning class now are losing their properties:

 AfrikanerPovertyManganese Miners BHP Billiton in SA get bad news June 18 2009 Picture -- Homelessness among Afrikaners is mainly caused by the rapid rate in which even the best-trained artisans and intellectuals are losing their jobs and falling into permanent destitution and homelessness due to the ANC’s racist ‘black-economic-empowerment’ laws. In June, this group of Afrikaner manganese miners heard a dreadful sentence when it was announced that they had all lost their jobs at BHP Billington. Picture: Solidarity trade union.

 

Kerwin Lebone, a reseAfrikanerPoorKrugersdorpSquatterCamp3archer at the Institute, said there seem to be different motivations for the differenPieterseEmpoverishedAfrikanerHelenaPieterseLosesShackInPretoriaStormBeeldLeonBothaOct12009t population groups to move into informal dwellings.

For the Indian and ‘white’ population groups, Lebone said, the loss of jobs, income and subsequently their homes are the primary impetus for moving into shacks.

"There are few documented cases where Africans [blacks] inhabit shacks because they have lost their homes," said Lebone. "For the majority of Africans informal settlements represent a cost-effective manner of breaking into the economic mainstream." In general, blacks seemed to migrate from rural areas, where the prospects of employment were bleak, to areas that could offer economic advancement.

Which is it ? - Are ‘whites’ growing homeless the fastest, or are whites still the wealthiest group in the country? It can’t be both… or can it?

There is a puzzling disparity between these two SAIRR reports this week. The same institute reports (a) that ‘whites  represent the highest-income group in the country’: . Press Statement- Disparities in wealth continue to plague South Africa - 23rd November 2009. but they also report b) that ‘whites’ (which we know are primarily Afrikaners) are moving into shuatter shacks at a much more rapid rate than do blacks, Indians and coloureds. http://www.sairr.org.za/press-office/press-releases/survey-8-press-release-12-11-2009-2.pdf

Two kinds of ‘whites’ – rich English-speakers, poor Afrikaners

Clearly there are two kinds of ‘whites” as there have always been  – the Afrikaner working- and middle-class, who now are proportionally becoming poorer the fastests and moving into marginal land-sites and ‘informal housing’ faster than any other population group.  And then there are those ‘other whites,’ the English-speaking liberals who are supported by big-business enterprises and indeed still earn the highest incomes in the country. But the SAIRR does not differentiate by ethnic-identification – it’s politically not correct – so the real facts about Afrikaner poverty remain hidden behind inaccurate and confusing research reports. 

Only by perusing the reports from Helping Hand, the charity run by Solidarity trade union can one ascertain the true facts.

AfrikanersPoorWhitesGoodwoodSquatterCampCape

 

AfrikanersPoorWhitesPretoriaNorthBackyardSquatterCamps 

 AfrikanersPoorWhiteKrugersdorpParkNov2008

Reasons for moving into informal housing: http://www.sairr.org.za/press-office/press-releases/survey-8-press-release-12-11-2009-2.pdf

Press Statement- Disparities in wealth continue to plague South Africa - 23rd November 2009

http://www.sairr.org.za/research-and-publications/south-africa-survey-2008-2009