Eeufees Old Age Home woes
WESTDENE – 'When you report something it gets fixed six months later' – Eeufees Old Age Home resident.
Broken fire hoses, no streetlights and a general lack of service delivery has Eeufees Old Age Home residents seething.
Haroon Patel, resident and elected Eeufees representative has come forward regarding the state of affairs at the home and said even though residents lived in an enclosed property, they did not feel safe.
The home is government-owned and the departments responsible for its functioning properly are the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) and the Department of Housing. “Joburg Housing requests maintenance which is done by JPC,” said Ward 69 councillor Genevive Sherman.
Patel pointed out that streetlights on the property did not work and fire hoses did not work as they should.
“People are too scared to walk around at night because it’s dark and you don’t know what could be waiting for you,” said Patel. “If that isn’t enough, should a fire break out, residents would die because none of these hoses [work].”
The Northcliff Melville Times visited the home and one of the tested hoses had water, however, the hose itself was broken.
“We’ve reported this. There are broken geysers as well but when you report something it gets fixed six months later,” he said.
In addition to maintenance issues, residents have also been complaining about a bordering veld which criminals use as a way to get in and out of the property without being seen. Seemingly, that is the only issue that has been resolved.
“I got City Parks to clean the veld for the first time in something like 15, 20 years,” Sherman said.
When asked about the way forward for maintenance, Sherman said up until 1 July funds were not allocated to various housing projects. She added that budgets have now been allocated and she was waiting for inspections and a report to be released on what needed to be done for the issues it to be attended to.
Sherman added that the issue was not a new one, and explained that a lot of the delay had to do with bureaucracy but was aware of the situation and was working on it.
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