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Taffy Adler: Safer Housing in Johannesburg

July 29, 2008

Taffy Adler wants to make the Johannesburg inner city livable again. He is head of an unusual housing association that provides affordable safe housing to thousands of tenants.

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Since the end of apartheid, the city center has become known as the center of crime. Many businesses and wealthier people have moved to the suburbs, leaving downtown Johannesburg to fall into ruin.

Even the police appear to have given up on the district. But Taffy Adler remains hopeful. The Johannesburg Housing Company now manages 24 buildings with 8,500 tenants, many of them low-income families, who also receive social support from the association.

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The report as video on demand

Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest but also its most dangerous city. Many of its more leafy areas, such as the district of Hilbrow, were once bastions of the Apartheid regime. If you wanted to live THERE, you had to be WHITE. This blunt form of racial segregation FELL with the Apartheid regime. Since then many thousands of people have come to Hillbrow to try and escape the poverty of the townships. But poverty STICKS. A fact Taffy Adler was very aware of when he decided to launch a business in Hillbrow. The Schwab foundation awarded him the title of ”Social Entrepreneur” for his vision and courage to take his business to a no-go area for many other investors.
July 29, 200807:00 min