By Own Correspondent- Housing issues remains a nightmare in Bulawayo’s oldest suburb as 170 houses reportedly house more than 3 or 4 families.

Overcrowing issues are now raising a health scare as 4 families share a single room in Makokoba.

Calling this arrangement a precolonial ill, Sunday News investigated these living conditions that was a pre-colonial phenomenon for single male workers, not an entire family.

In the shared accommodation arrangement for single male workers who worked in the city, 3 or 4 single men would share a single big room with an outside flush toilet.

Some of the residents of Makokoba with shared accommodation said:

“I was born in this house (room) in 1994, there is no other home I know, my parents have previously tried to get alternative accommodation but this has been in vain as council only offered stands and as you know it is expensive to construct a house nowadays.

We have tried to engage council on our situation but it is rather difficult because whatever deliberations made, they are money determined. As it is I have managed to get myself a small corner within the same house where I am raising my young family

Bulawayo City Council acknowledged the problem and said they were doing all they can to address the situation.-StateMedia