I'm home and dry at last

Deidre Julie stood in a corner of her house on Friday and wept - the day she had been looking forward to for two decades had at last arrived.

"They just need to put the electricity in," she said, "but I have hung the curtains and on my first night I will look up and say, 'Now there is a roof that isn't leaking'."

Julie, 38, is one of 30 new home-homers in Cape Town's Pelican Park who have been poised, suitcase in hand, for a month, waiting for the phone call telling them that their new house is ready for occupation.

The houses were built by international volunteers working for global NGO Habitat for Humanity.

The building was scheduled to take four days, beginning on October 6 to celebrate World Habitat Day.

But when the volunteers left, five days later, the houses had no roofs.

"I am also waiting for a bin, but that's nothing. I don't have the words to explain how this feels.

"In the past 22 years I have even lived in a caravan and a Wendy house," said Julie, who will be moving in with her partner and 14-year-old daughter.

Vino van Rensburg, of RR Housing Management, is responsible for getting housing subsidies approved and handing the units over.

"People must look after their dwellings and make sure that when they are no longer here someone in the family will get them," he said.

"It is also important for the new homeowners to ensure that the units are being used only for residential purposes."

New homeowner Deborah Beukman, 54, said she was "over the moon" and the first thing she would do when she moved in would be to bless her new home.