South African police fire rubber bullets during the eviction of residents near Johannesburg.

South African police fired rubber bullets at residents who tried to block the eviction of scores of houses near Johannesburg on Tuesday by throwing stones and torching a municipal building.

After police gained access to the housing complex in Ekurhuleni, about 10 kilometres east of central Johannesburg, a squad of men moved in and threw furniture and personal belongings out of the homes.

The police said that they were acting on a June court order to evict people from the complex, which was reportedly home to 450 families.

Shocked residents accused the government of failing them amid South Africa's housing crisis.

They said they believed the homes were part of a scheme to provide houses for black South Africans disadvantaged by the previous racist apartheid system.

Two people were arrested for setting alight the nearby offices of the municipal home affairs department, police said.

Some residents insisted they had not been issued an eviction order and had been paying rent for years.

CBI News reports that after taking power following the end of white minority rule in 1994, the African National Congress-led government adopted a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to provide subsidised housing and other services to black South Africans disadvantaged by apartheid.

According to government figures, by 2017 nearly 14 percent of South African households lived in RDP or government-subsidised homes.

Despite this homelessness has risen from 13,000 in 1996 to more than 55,700 in 2022.

Most homeless people are in Johannesburg's Gauteng province, the country's economic hub which attracts migrants from across Africa.