Cape Town, South Africa: The City of Cape Town made a record by honouring new homeowners this festive season. The Mayoral committee has recognized 1,470 new homeowners with Deeds Title as a part of the City’s ‘Festive Deeds Challenge’.
The challenge originally aimed to create 1000 new homeowners by the end of December. The challenge concluded with a couple named Samsodien and Aniesah Solomons being the final recipients of this homeownership initiative in Mitchell’s Plain.
The ‘Festive Deeds Challenge’ was announced in November at the Title Deed event in Lentegeur on Wednesday. More than 21 million rands were allocated to boost the initiative.
During the launch of the great cause, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements – Carl Pophaim, said that he had set the challenge to the City’s Human Settlements Directorate to empower at least 1000 qualifying residents with title deeds and keys of their own homes by the end of December.
He mentioned that the Festive Deeds Challenge is a first of its kind. Pophaim was actually appointed to help drive human settlement delivery. “Make sure that we shift to the highest gear to speed up delivery and empower more qualifying residents as first-time homeowners,” added Carl Pophaim.
The committee member said that his grandmother and her siblings received their title deeds as part of a restitution process, and it is thus an integral drive to empower and redress the qualifying families and upcoming generations.
“We need to do more, Do it better, Do it faster,” stated Carl Pophaim.
The campaign aimed to build more resources to find beneficiaries through better tracking and tracing. Pophaim himself went door-to-door to find the eligible receivers and honour them for their deeds. In total, 21.6 million Rands were spent to deliver title deeds.
Notably, the Festive Deeds Challenge was expanded in the regions of Mitchell’s Plain, Nomzamo, Hout Bay, Ocean View, Atlantis, Hanover Park, Nyanga, Bonteheuwel, Heideveld, Gugulethu, Bishop Lavis, Simon’s Town, Durbanville and Khayelitsha.