Anger at Sea Point eviction threat

PROTESTERS in Sea Point have picketed outside the luxury flat of a woman whose family trust is threatening to forcibly evict a domestic worker from her basement single room.

Reclaim the City, which organised the protest, has been critical of Lior van Embden who is the beneficiary of the Lior-Chen Trust, which owns the Rapallo apartment building, for going ahead with legal action to evict Thandeka Sisusa who has lived in the apartment with her daughter and granddaughter for the past eight years.

Sisusa has been paying rent of R450 a month for the apartment, which was previously used as staff quarters.

Lior van Embden’s husband, Jacques van Embden, is also embroiled in court action, as his company seeks to evict a group of tenants in Bromwell Street, Woodstock.

Yesterday Sisusa vowed that she would not vacate her room until she was offered alternative accommodation. She claims she is being evicted to make way for a store room.

“My life is here. I have been here in Sea Point for 23 years. I have never lived anywhere else. How can they evict me just to make a store room? That means they value their precious assets more than human life,” she said.

Reclaim the City spokesman Daneel Knoetze said that if the eviction was carried out as expected, Sisusa, her 
daughter and her baby granddaughter would be left homeless with only days to go before Christmas.

“With this picket we appeal to Van Embden’s conscience and ask that she not allow 
for an eviction that would leave Sisusa and her family homeless.

“As property prices sky-rocket in Sea Point, and other well-located areas near the city, poor and working-class residents are being forced out.

“Such residents of Sea Point refuse to relocate to townships – they assert their right to live close to where they need to be for work, and to where their children go to school,” he said.

Van Embden could not be reached for comment.

Sisusa said she had been offered to move to Blikkiesdorp, from where she would have to travel to Sea Point every day with her children as they attend school there.

“I will take Van Embden to court to appeal against the eviction. This is very unfair to me.

“I have never imagined myself living in the township, not to mention crime-ridden Blikkiesdorp.

“I can’t imagine my life outside Sea Point where I have been working all these years and built friendships.

“This is putting a strain on my daughter.

“She keeps asking me, ‘Where are we going to go?’”

michael.nkalane@inl.co.za