No budget, no plan: Joburg’s old-age homes maintained only if funds are available

The City of Johannesburg has admitted that its old-age homes are maintained without dedicated budgets – and the situation has deteriorated to the point where councillors are now appealing to neighbouring residents to help the elderly living with leaking geysers, blocked drains, damp-filled units, broken sanitation and failing security.

In responses tabled at the March 2026 council meeting, following questions from DA councillor Neuren Pietersen, whose ward includes Dewetshof, the City’s Department of Human Settlements said maintenance is funded through a centralised pool and prioritised based on “need, risk and budget availability”, meaning repairs are carried out only if funds are available.

The department further indicated that even urgent repairs are undertaken only “subject to budget availability” – a system that leaves known defects unresolved and helps explain why conditions in these facilities continue to deteriorate.

The disclosure follows Daily Maverick’s earlier reporting that the City is already struggling to sustain the portfolio. By September 2025, only 19.31% of residents across the City’s 39 old-age homes were paying rent in full and on time.

FOR CONTEXT

Joburg’s abandoned elders — inside the City’s failing old-age home system

November 30, 2025

The City’s old-age homes operate on a low-cost municipal rental model, with heavily subsidised tariffs, meaning the system depends on payments to cover basic operating costs such as utilities and routine maintenance. With fewer than one in five residents paying, the City is effectively unable to recover even its most basic running costs.

That same month, the City billed R550,431 in rental income and added R321,193 in interest on arrears – a total of nearly R872,000. Yet after adjustments and bad debt, the City recorded a net negative collection of R168,314, effectively losing money on the portfolio.

The City’s responses show how limited that centralised system is.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the department was allocated R31,017,000 for repairs and maintenance across all council-owned stock – including flats, hostels and old-age homes.

At a regional level, funding is further diluted. In Region F, which includes several inner-city and surrounding facilities, the allocation amounts to R6,113,000 for the year, used to respond to ad hoc maintenance requests across multiple sites.

A separate R18-million rehabilitation budget was allocated for council-owned stock, but this had to cover both flats and old-age homes across all six regions.

The department confirmed that “this amount had to cater to the rehabilitation of both flats and old age homes across the six regions”.

Set against the scale of the City’s housing portfolio, these allocations are thinly spread. The R31-million maintenance budget must cover all council-owned stock, including flats, hostels and old-age homes, while the R18-million rehabilitation allocation is shared across six regions.

In practice, this means individual facilities compete for limited funds, with no guaranteed allocation for upgrades or major repairs in any given year. Even modest repair projects at a single facility can run into hundreds of thousands of rands, meaning only a small number of sites can realistically be addressed each year.

In the same responses, the City indicated that maintenance was carried out based on priority and available funding, with emergency repairs attended to only when resources allowed.

The department also confirmed that not all facilities were included in planned maintenance programmes.

Joshco transition disrupted maintenance

The department also acknowledged that recent changes to its maintenance model contributed to delays.

It previously relied on the Johannesburg Social Housing Company (Joscho) as an implementing agent, but has since moved to internalise maintenance functions.

“Some delays were experienced due to the transfer of operational control,” the City said.

Conditions are worsening: Eeufees Oord Old Age Home

While the City maintains that systems are in place, councillors say the situation has deteriorated beyond what they can resolve through official channels.

At the Eeufees Oord Old Age Home in Westdene, ward councillor Genevieve Sharman, from the DA, said she is now appealing to local residents to assist elderly tenants directly.

“Everyone across the city is in the same situation. I keep meeting residents, but can offer no assistance. When we, as councillors, report faults, we are told the City has no money,” she said.

“I am now resorting to asking neighbouring residents to help the old people out. At Eeufees, their gate motor has been stolen, so they sit with open gates and anyone can walk in. It is a desperate situation.”

She said conditions at Eeufees Old Age Home reflected a broader pattern.

“Eeufees is bad, but it is a luxury compared to some of the others.”

Residents say they are increasingly forced to carry the cost of repairs themselves.

At the same facility, resident Desiree Sharpe said tenants were left to deal with maintenance failures without support.

“They keep saying they have no money. We pay for everything ourselves,” she said.

She described how an 85-year-old resident had to pay privately to repair a burst geyser after the City declined to assist. The geyser continues to leak because the resident cannot afford a full replacement.

Sharpe said the facility was deteriorating further, with broken cisterns, damp caused by leaking pipes and gutters in poor condition. Streetlights have been out for more than a year, making it unsafe for residents to move around at night, while vandalised empty units remain unrepaired.

Dewetshof: Known defects, no certainty of repair

Dewetshof Retirement Village, the City said in response to questions, “did not form part of the targeted facilities in the current financial year.”

Here, the consequences of this system are clear.

Maintenance records show a range of unresolved issues, including collapsed ceilings, leaking taps, broken geysers, roof defects and broken windows.

In each case, repairs are recorded as pending allocation, with completion dependent on available funding.

Pietersen said the responses indicated that while such defects were logged and assessed, there was no certainty that they would be addressed within a given timeframe.

From financial strain to systemic failure

In previous responses to Daily Maverick, the City attributed the deterioration of its old-age homes to low rental collection rates and rising utility costs.

But its own March responses suggest the problem runs deeper.

With no dedicated facility budgets, maintenance funded through shared pools and repairs dependent on available funds, the system itself appears increasingly unable to sustain the housing it is responsible for.

For the thousands of elderly residents who depend on these homes, the consequences are already visible.

Not only in buildings that are deteriorating, but in a system where, even when something breaks, there is no certainty that it will be fixed. DM