Queer activists occupying a luxury Camps Bay Airbnb left the property by the deadline set by the Cape Town high court, but insisted the issues they intended raising about inequality, access to accommodation and the vulnerability of the LGBTQI community remained pressing.
Their almost three-week occupation of the seaside property attracted both support and criticism.
Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Zakhele Mbhele, the party’s spokesperson on small business development, said the activists were ‘tainting’ and ‘undermining’ the ‘legitimate struggle of many to advance LGBTQIA+ rights’. He argued it was ‘hypocritical to claim to advance a rights-based agenda by violating the rights of others’.
But even as the #WeSeeYou activists were preparing to leave the property on Thursday, supporters of their cause from another organization, Singabalapha (a group from Langa, Gugulethu, Nyanga East and Khayelitsha who say they are ‘fighting for land and housing for all’) urged them to stay put.
The occupiers of the Airbnb – a group of seven, calling themselves the Queer Radical Feminist Activist Collective – rented the property for three nights only at the end of September. When their rental expired, they announced that they intended remaining in the home for as long as possible, saying they hoped to draw attention to issues around land and housing.
Owner of the property, TurnKey365 Property Management Group, initially asked the queer activists to leave a few days later. When they did not, Turnkey365 sought relief from the high court. The court gave the activists until noon on Thursday to leave.
As they left the Camps Bay house on Thursday, one of the group, Xena Scullard told reporters: ‘Why are shelters not being built in the CBD close … to social amenities like work, hospitals, and good schools? That is what we are essentially pointing a finger at.’
[Picture: Octagon, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6411750]