Tommy Trenchard/Panos Pictures

Auntie Sienna, a long term resident of Cissie Gool House, distributes food that had been donated to the occupants as a gift during the month of Ramadan. The building, which was once a government hospital before it fell into disrepair and was abandoned, is now being occupied by over 1,000 people. Auntie Sienna was forced out of her Woodstock home after her landlord abruptly increased the rent from 800 Rand to 3,000 Rand.

Since 2017, the Reclaim the City movement has been supporting the occupation of various abandoned buildings in central Cape Town in order to protest against gentrification and the lack of affordable housing near the city centre, and to provide a refuge for those being evicted from their homes. During the apartheid era non-white residents were forcibly removed from much of central Cape Town. Nearly three decades later the city remains chronically divided along ethnic and socio-economic lines, while South Africa remains the world's most unequal country, according to the World Bank.