Backyard Dwellers

Thousands of people are living in poor conditions the backyards of a Pretoria North suburb. (© Gallo Images/The Times/Daniel Born)

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Herman Porgieter at a squatter's house in Daspoort on February 25, 2013, in Pretoria, South Africa. The 11 tenants on this property pay between R700 and R1,000 rent a month to live in shared wooden shacks that do not have water or electricity.

TimesLive reported that about 5,000 destitute people are squatting in backyards and broken-down houses in Daspoort, Pretoria North, according to Magda Stroebel, the founder of Angels at Work.

In one example, Nicolaas Krugel stays in a backyard in Charl Cilliers Street, where wooden shacks are the home for him and several others, who apparently pay as much as R1,000 a month to stay there. Krugel is a pensioner, and he told the newspaper that he moved into the shack in November. His state pension hardly covers his rental and food needs for the month.

He shares the shack with Arther Coetzee, 58, who became homeless when his mother died, and two others.

The others living in the backyard use the toilet in the house during the day, but at night they use the bucket system.

The property’s owner, Isabel Potgieter, threatened TimesLive with legal action if they published the story.

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