Like many other informal settlements, it was named after former housing minister and anti-Apartheid activist, Joe Slovo.

[1] While residents have been fighting for 15 years for their right to live in Langa, the settlement recently came into prominence when it began to oppose the national pilot housing project of minister Lindiwe Sisulu called The N2 Gateway.

[2] Residents have opposed the government's request that they be forcibly removed to Delft, a new township on the outskirts of the city.

In August 2008, about 200 Joe Slovo residents travelled by train to Johannesburg, spent the night at the Methodist Church in Braamfontein, and arrived the morning early at the Constitutional Court to protest proposed evictions.

[4] They were accompanied in solidarity by the Anti-Eviction Campaign as well as residents from Symphony Way, an informal settlement that is also in conflict with the government over the N2 Gateway Housing Project.