After 12 years of being in the City of Johannesburg’s Housing Schemes waiting list, Elizabeth Swartz (79) still finds herself homeless. On July 12, 2001, Swartz applied for her first old age accommodation and what seemed to be promising turned out to be an endless stress to her life.

On the Housing Department application forms, applicants are made aware that there is a long waiting list and that the date on which the applicant will be accommodated cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

However, should accommodation become available the department will advise accordingly? With this receipt, Swartz waited.

“Since 2001 I applied for space and they played around with me all the years telling me that I must come in again and then every time I go in they say ‘there’s nothing at the moment, you have to come back again.” said the widow of 29 years.

At the time Swartz was assisting a woman with real-estate and was able to rent-a-flat with the commission she earned, however when she could no longer work there, she was dependent on receiving a unit in a retirement village.

Swartz explains: “I went back again in 2015 so they said that my application is not on the system. I’ve got to make a new application so I did that and I went a few weeks ago and the same thing and there’s nothing.

“I told them that I’m in the street and I need a place to stay. I’m sickly too, I can’t work, I can’t even rent a place now. The SASSA money is so little, I can’t pay them I got to see to myself. I got to have a place.”

According to Swartz, she was told by officials that there was nothing they could do to help her.

Swartz will turn 80 in the coming months and is currently homeless, the Housing Department has asked her to reapply because they cannot find her on the system, but Swartz has all of her documents.

She was asked to move out of the accommodation that she was living in. The independent senior said that she does not want to be a burden unto her family and has over the last years have been selling her valuables in order to pay for rent.

She recalled spending the night at a filling station in her car when she had no place to go. She is only left with a few valuables is worried about where she’ll end up.

“She is a child from the soil of Westbury, that’s why I emailed Susan Stewart, said Val Le Bon, the Empowerment Centre Manager of Kofifi FM.

She then added, “They say a country that looks after its citizens and its children is a good country. We are not looking after our senior citizens, that’s my argument.

“She worked all her life to build this country, the little that she put in, all that is gone because no one is looking after her now that she can’t take care of herself anymore.”

Le Bon has assisted Swartz with getting into contact with councillor Susan Stewart. After missed calls and an email, Stewart finally responded.

During a conversation with the councillor, she has indicated that she has forwarded all the relevant documents to officials at the housing department so that Swartz can finally retire with a roof over her head.

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