Page 28 - Heritage Streets of KwaMashu 2025

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HERITAGE STREETS OF KWA-MASHU
EARLY HOUSING OF KWA-MASHU
ORIGINAL HOUSES
People moving from Cato Manor and other areas into KwaMashu faced huge challenges with housing. Housing levels ranged from informal shacks (which were built by the African people themselves out of
desperation) to one-, two-, and four-roomed houses as well as hostels – for men only. It is apparent that the government at the time did not even allow people to break down their own shacks and move them to Kwa-Mashu, but that these were often purposefully destroyed. Once moved into Kwa-Mashu, a person was allocated housing according to his or her status as a married man, a single man or a single woman, or a family with children.
The larger houses had their own ablution facilities, but the smaller houses typically shared ablution. Married men with children carried the highest status and were typically allocated larger homes in sections B, C, D and E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M. If the man of the house for some reason left or passed on, the women and children were moved back in the areas with single roomed- houses and shared ablutions.
Minutes of meetings from archives showed that some of the contention was caused by the fact that people did not understand – or agree – with their rights, which basically boiled down to no rights at all. In one document, in response to a request to reconsider people being moved from their homes in Cato Manor to KwaMashu, an official stated: