Abstract
Across time and place housing has played a central role in building families and communities as well as shaping the social and economic fabric of society. Hohmann (2013) posits that because of their role in the social and economic development of societies, professions such as social work, law and engineering are increasingly attracting interest in housing discourse and practice. In South Africa the African National Congress-led government has made huge strides in providing mass housing since 1994. However, many criticisms have been directed against the way in which it has been implementing the individual housing subsidy programme, popularly known as the RDP, which was later replaced by the Breaking New Ground (BNG) in 2004 (Noyoo & Sobantu, 2019; Sobantu, Zulu & Maphosa, 2019). Since the BNG was implemented, not much perceptible progress has not been realised in terms of improved housing access for women and other vulnerable populations (Pithouse, 2009; Noyoo & Sobantu, 2019; Sobantu, 2019; Sobantu et al., 2019). Among other criticisms, Fish (2003:405) points out that the RDP housing programme was “not appropriately geared to address the needs of female-headed households…[and] ignores the demographic data that 20-45 per cent of households in informal settlements are women.” Gender blindness in providing social welfare services such as housing assumes that men and women have equal opportunities to access housing and that they also experience housing or lack of it in a similar way. This paper examines the meaning and the importance of housing from the empirical perspectives of women who are beneficiaries of social rental housing in South Africa.