Stop Bank Exploitation: Demand Direct State Housing Finance for All Working South Africans!

Every single citizen in South Africa has a fundamental, constitutional right to have access to adequate housing (Section 26). Yet, the current system abandons and exploits every working-class family—whether you earn R8,000 a month or R28,000 a month. We are all being funneled into a financial trap.

The government's current subsidy solution, FLISP (First Home Finance), is a deeply flawed illusion. It does not solve the housing crisis—it acts as a state-subsidized pipeline directly into private bank debt. A working family might receive a FLISP subsidy, but because property prices are so artificially high, they are still forced to take out a private home loan for the remaining balance. This monthly bond repayment instantly forces the family into a brutal, hand-to-mouth survival loop, leaving them with almost nothing left for food, transport, electricity, or school fees.

The state legally prohibits you from using a FLISP subsidy independently to buy land or build with cash; they explicitly force you to get a private commercial bank home loan approval first. Taxpayer money is being used to fund "deposits" that simply lower the financial risk for multi-billion-rand banks, helping them safely lock working families into 20-year compound interest traps.

The math behind standard bank home loans is absolute daylight robbery. Due to predatory interest rates, a basic R900,000 house ends up costing over R3.2 million in total repayments. Private bank shareholders extract millions in pure profit from working families just for us to own a single stone on our own ancestral land.

We are calling on the Department of Human Settlements and Parliament to intervene immediately and create a State-Backed Direct Housing Finance (SBDHF) system to replace the banking cartel for all working citizens:

1. Direct State Land Sourcing: The state must release public and ancestral land directly to qualifying working-class citizens, serviced and provided entirely at baseline cost—eliminating private land speculation and corporate developer profit margins.

2. At-Cost State Building: Restructure the NHFC and HDA to act as direct, state-run, non-profit builders, executing the physical construction of standard structural home options for families at raw material and labor costs.

3. Interest-Free Housing Tax Bracket / Payroll Deduction: Eradicate commercial bond interest completely. The state must fund and complete the house upfront, and the citizen will repay the exact baseline cost over a fixed 10-to-20-year period via an affordable municipal housing tax or an automated payroll deduction. 100% of these funds will go straight back into the public infrastructure pool to build more homes, not into private bank profits.

The government cannot keep throwing its people to the wolves. If you are tired of living hand-to-mouth just to pay millions in interest to private banks for your basic human right to a roof over your head, sign this petition to demand structural policy reform in Parliament!