From hostels to CRUs: Spaces of perpetual perplexity

Abstract

This article highlights the dissonance that takes place in the conversion of the hostel system and the transformation of migrant spaces to Community Residential Units (CRUs), using the KwaMashu hostel as a primary site of investigation. CRUs are family housing designed by the government to replace former single sex workers’ hostels. The interesting changes that have been taking place at the hostel include the refurbishment of the hostels and the setting up of CRUs, shrinking formal employment, the increased presence of young, unmarried women and children from the rural areas, increased informal settlements in the surroundings of the CRUs, an increase in the crime rate, and failed attempts to abolish the informal settlements in the past 26 years. Specifically, the abolition of influx control in 1986 and the dawning of democracy in South Africa in 1994 were turning points for the former hostels. The article highlights the stories of hostel dwellers and the processes that take place when the former single sex workers’ hostels of the apartheid era are turned into CRUs.

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