'No free homes to under-40s'

Anyone younger than 40 will not get a free house from the government, Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said yesterday.

"Anybody below the age of 40 are not our priority unless they have special needs or are heads of childheaded households," Sisulu said in Durban. "Our intention in giving free houses was to right the wrongs of the past. And that group of people is not the people below the age of 40," she said on the sidelines of the 6th Planning Africa Conference.

The government had "received a lot of flak" for not providing free housing to young people, she said.

The message to young people needed to be clear - that they would not receive free housing, she said. The government had made this clear, but many young people still had expectations of free housing.

"I don't know of a country that gives free houses to young people. Free housing in a few years will be something of the past. (Young people) have lost nothing (to apartheid).

"If it is not clear - none of you (young people) are ever going to get a house free from me while I live."

Government free housing projects were not sustainable, she said. They were aimed at helping those who had suffered under apartheid.

Many of those who had suffered under apartheid were likely to be caught in a poverty trap. The free housing offered by the government would help those, she said.

While the government would not provide free housing, it would still provide affordable housing to the young or assist them with financing.

Special tribunals were being planned to prosecute people who sold free government housing or rented out housing they had received from the government, Sisulu said.

Sapa