Abstract

This article deals with the lessons to be learned from the Grootboom’s judgment, twelve years after the judgment, which declared the State’s housing policy to be unreasonable and thus invalid, was delivered by the Constitutional Court. It also deals with the right of everyone to have access to adequate housing, children’s rights to basic shelter, and prisoners’ rights to adequate accommodation and legislations and policies which deal with the right of access to housing. The South African Constitution entrenches housing as a specific socio-economic right. This right is also provided for in the White Paper on Housing and in the Housing Act (1997). The main challenges to the protection and enforcement of housing rights in South Africa are corruption, nepotism and the cadre deployment policy of the ruling party and the numerous community protests regarding poor service delivery indicate the extent to which this right is not being realized.

Key words: Challenges, housing policy, basic socio-economic amenities, jurisprudence, South Africa.