Thirty years after apartheid, South Africa’s failed housing promise | Housing

Cape Town, South Africa – In the backyard of a small house in Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain stands a one-room corrugated iron structure.

Inside, Cheryl-Ann Smith, her husband and three grandsons have made a home. They are among thousands of so-called “backyard dwellers” in this impoverished area locals call Lost City.

Here, residents often sublet part of their small plots to others who are even less well-off than they are, creating invisible households without access to basic services like electricity and sanitation.

In the Smiths’ single-room dwelling, there is barely enough space…