Thirty years after apartheid, South Africa’s failed housing promise

In Cape Town's Mitchells Plain, many people who are left without houses build shacks or informal dwellings in the backyards of other homes [File: Rodger Bosch/AFP]

Cape Town, South Africa – In the backyard of a small house in Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain stands a one-room corrugated iron structure.

Inside, Cheryl-Ann Smith, her husband and three grandsons have made a home. They are among thousands of so-called “backyard dwellers” in this impoverished area locals call Lost City.