News - Environment: 'R34bn needed to house shack dwellers'
News - Environment: 'R34bn needed to house shack dwellers' Taxpayers will have to fork out between R23-billion and R34-billion over the next 14 years to provide housing to the 190 000 families living in shacks.Durban's ambitious plans to eradicate the slums and the more than 200 informal settlements that dot eThekwini, by 2015, will cost national, provincial and municipal government R3,1-billion a year. Council contractors would then have to almost double the 16 000 homes that will have been built this financial year to meet the target.But the city's progressive housing and service provision programme has now become a double-edged sword, attracting thousands of aspirant home seekers into the city each year, housing head, Coglin Pather said. In presenting Durban's housing delivery plan at city hall on Tuesday, Pather said millions would also have to be found to provide emergency housing as incidents of shack fires skyrocket each year."We are building between 16