A ROOF OVER MY HEAD

Research has proved that there are a number of communes running illegal accommodation specifically for students in University in the city of Johannesburg.

Sayyed Bagsangani (one of those running illegal communes) commented in an article in today’s mail and guardian "If the city relaxed the policy, sped up the application process and reduced the cost, more owners would apply for consent. We don't want to be illegal." (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-20-students-at-the-mercy--of-landlords/)

1. Who’s to blame?

· Can we blame the University's for enrolling a large number of students?

· Can we blame point fingers at those running illegal communes regardless of their reasons behind why they are running those communes?

· Does the blame fall on the city of Johannesburg for failure to provide enough houses for student accommodation?

2. Where to from here?

Shutting down certain communes, illegal or not, will not help the students who are in need of accommodation; if anything, this could result in them having to find accommodation somewhere further away from the University hence being late for lectures and assessments due to matters such as traffic.



business.nmsu.edu



This is questioning in terms of ethics: Should we allow illegal communes to run so that these students may have a roof over their heads, or should we close them down and give these students another task to tackle?