JOHANNESBURG, Monday 14 September 2026 — Fourteen of Gauteng’s 45 government-funded housing projects have been illegally occupied over the past five years, leaving intended beneficiaries waiting while the provincial government spends heavily on security, court action and evictions.
The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements confirmed the scale of the problem in written responses to the provincial legislature. A fresh investigation published on Monday found that the occupation problem remains unresolved despite security measures and eviction proceedings.
The issue is significant ahead of the 4 November local government elections because housing backlogs, informal settlements, land occupation and the allocation of state-funded homes remain major service-delivery pressures across Gauteng’s metropolitan and local municipalities.
Fourteen of 45 projects affected
The affected developments include projects such as Eagle Nest, Western Mega Project, Danville, Beverly Hills and Olievenhoutbosch Extension 36, according to information provided by the department to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
The 14 projects represent almost one-third of the 45 developments covered by the provincial response.
The department says many of the houses involved had already been funded and built and were intended for formally approved beneficiaries before being unlawfully occupied.
That means the problem is not limited to undeveloped land invasions.
In some cases, completed or nearly completed homes intended for households on government housing lists have become the subject of lengthy legal processes before they can be allocated.
Each eviction order costs about R1.5m
The provincial department says each eviction process costs an average of approximately R1.5 million, creating an additional burden on the housing budget.
Those costs can involve legal proceedings, security, sheriffs and law-enforcement support.
The department has appointed a panel of private security companies to monitor housing developments, conduct surveillance, provide early warnings of invasions and assist with the execution of court orders.
It has also begun a housing-recovery programme aimed at reclaiming unlawfully occupied units, refurbishing damaged properties where necessary and transferring them to verified beneficiaries.
Sedibeng project shows scale of individual occupations
The Department of Human Settlements has cited the Obed “Mthombeni” Nkosi housing project in Sedibeng as one example of the difficulty.
The number of unlawfully occupied units at that development increased from 48 to 292, according to the department.
Provincial authorities say court orders are being implemented in cooperation with Lesedi Local Municipality, the sheriff, SAPS and Public Order Policing.
Evictions must comply with the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, meaning occupants cannot simply be removed without due legal process.
Beneficiary-list management also under scrutiny
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements chair Nocks Seabi told The Citizen that poor management of beneficiary lists was contributing to housing disputes nationally.
He called for a digital system that would identify intended beneficiaries from the start of each project and allow applicants to establish their position in the allocation process.
Seabi said clearer beneficiary information could reduce uncertainty and limit opportunities for illegal occupation.
Project delays also leave houses exposed.
He said completed or near-completed properties can remain empty because of disputes with contractors, payment problems or delays in approvals by the National Home Builders Registration Council.
When allocation is delayed, vacant houses can become targets for occupation.
Occupations create a double cost
The financial consequence extends beyond eviction costs.
Government can first spend public money constructing a house, then incur additional legal and security costs to recover it and potentially have to repair the property before it can finally be transferred to the approved beneficiary.
Seabi said this creates avoidable duplication of expenditure.
For households on housing waiting lists, the impact can be more immediate.
Families who have already been identified for houses can remain in informal settlements or other inadequate accommodation while litigation over occupied properties continues.
Department rejects claim that occupations prove housing failure
The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements has rejected opposition attempts to characterise every unlawful occupation as evidence that the province failed to deliver housing.
It says illegal occupation is a criminal act and argues that many affected homes had already been constructed and were ready for allocation before being taken over.
Human Settlements MEC Tasneem Motara said each illegally occupied government home effectively deprives a household that followed the approved allocation process of the property intended for it.
The department says it delivered 7,237 Breaking New Ground houses in 2024/25, against a target of 5,914, while registering 6,244 title deeds.
Those delivery figures do not resolve the separate problem of protecting completed developments before allocation.
DA says province failed to protect developments
DA Gauteng human settlements spokesperson Mervyn Cirota has blamed the provincial government for allowing the occupations to become entrenched.
The party says more security, early-warning systems and faster legal intervention should have been introduced before projects were occupied.
That is the DA’s political assessment rather than an independent finding.
The party has indicated that it wants further information on the number of legitimate beneficiaries affected, the value of the occupied projects and what preventative measures had been in place.
Housing pressure stretches across Gauteng metros
The problem has particular political relevance in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, where housing demand and the growth of informal settlements are closely linked to municipal service-delivery pressures.
The City of Tshwane, for example, has identified more than 500 informal settlements and estimates that fully upgrading or relocating them would require tens of billions of rand.
Provincial housing projects consequently form part of a wider intergovernmental system involving municipalities responsible for land use, bulk infrastructure and local services.
When state-funded housing developments stall or are occupied, municipalities may continue carrying the cost of providing temporary services to informal communities whose residents are still awaiting formal housing.
Prevention now as important as eviction
The latest figures show that recovering occupied houses through the courts is both expensive and slow.
That shifts attention towards preventing occupations before they occur.
For the Gauteng government, that means securing developments, completing construction and approvals faster, maintaining credible beneficiary databases and allocating finished homes without lengthy gaps.
For intended beneficiaries, the issue is more immediate: a government house may technically have been built for them while remaining inaccessible because somebody else has moved into it.
With housing and informal-settlement management likely to feature prominently in Gauteng’s municipal election campaign, the province now faces pressure to demonstrate that the public money being used to construct homes is matched by systems capable of ensuring those homes reach the households for whom they were intended.
