Two thirds of those making up the collective referred to as ‘the homeless’ are individuals that shouldn't even be on the streets, says the writer. Picture: Independent Newspapers Archive
Cape Town - I received an email this weekend which I feel the need to share so that I can use it to highlight how the City's policy on homelessness (which in effect just displaces people living on the streets from one area to the next) is impacting communities.
The lady wrote:
"I have been following your posts on social media, in particular on Twitter. Please may I ask for your advice on how to address / approach the following? How can we get the City to re-home a growing number of homeless persons in our street, please? Is there something else we should do to ensure the safety of our children as well as the safety of those sleeping on the streets? We have both The Haven night shelter as well as U- Turn operating in the Claremont area.
Unfortunately the regulars have recently been joined by a younger, more active crowd who are openly shooting needles and harassing local residents when they return home in the early hours of the morning due to the residents' shift work. They are also hiding goods in drains and bins.
There is also talk that some of the younger ones belong to the bigger gangs in the southern and Cape Flats suburbs and therefore act as lookouts for break-ins to cars and homes, as well as muggings, in addition to perhaps being conduits for drug sales
Logging calls with the City of Cape Town has yielded no result. One's call log is simply closed without any action. The police have come out about 4 times in this period and have said that there is nothing that they can do."
People living on the streets are incorrectly portrayed by the City, Province and state as all being either criminal or people struggling with serious mental health issues that make them dangerous. And so we offer an undignified and unsustainable one size fits all housing solution and we criminalise all those who are homeless.
This is not the reality but it serves political agendas. The reality is that two thirds of those making up the collective referred to as "the homeless" are individuals that shouldn't even be on the streets.
These are our the most vulnerable citizens: the elderly, the disabled, those with mental health challenges that can be medicated, abused moms with kids and families who through job losses also lost their homes.
If the City admitted this and started offering permanent, dignified, supportive and sustainable accommodation options outside of their temporary shelter and safe space option, it would be easier to deal with the problematic groups: those with serious mental health issues and the criminal element that because of the anonymity of the homeless community infiltrate this community in order to facilitate their criminal activities.(as you correctly point out).
It is also important to note that a large number of people living on the streets eventually start using either drugs or alcohol in order to cope with living on the streets and it's usually freely available in areas where there is a concentration of the criminal element that infiltrates homeless communities and with that bring along the dealers and the runners and the resulting heightened criminal activity.
The reason for this is that the criminal element has a symbiotic relationship with drug dealers and pushers.
They rob, steal, break in and pick pocket and their ill gotten gains are then exchanged for drugs with the dealers and runners.
They in turn not only use the drugs but also cut them further and sell these cut and dangerous drugs to those living on the streets that use them as a coping mechanism.
Most of those comprising the criminal element are associated with gangs like "the sexy boys" and they literally control the homeless populations they infiltrate.
What both the City and residents need to realise is that as the City harasses, evicts and displaces those living on the streets, it is in fact mostly moving the criminal element to the next homeless community in search of the anonymity that brings.
And with this, they create yet another hub for the drug runners and dealers to establish themselves in.
So what is happening in Claremont.Why the sudden rise in the presence of the criminal element amongst their "homeless"?
The Southern suburbs concentration of the homeless has always been mostly contained in Observatory and Mowbray with the runners and dealers being concentrated in Mowbray in the Main Road near the station.
The reason being it was convenient for the street users to get to them and it was central for those dealers that supply the students and the wealthy users in Observatory, Mowbray, Claremont, Rondebosch and surrounds.
Last year a concerted effort was made by the Observatory Councilor to start removing the homeless from the public square in Observatory and under the bridge at the station as these areas were overflowing with not only homeless people but also the most prominent gangs had moved in on the area from their previous grounds of the CBD, Woodstock and Salt River.
This was followed by the City harassing, evicting and forcing the displacement of the homeless in and around 3 Rivers Park and surrounds as they prepared to welcome the new upmarket Riverlands development and shopping mall.
Most of those displaced moved towards Wynberg and Claremont.
Mowbray was out of the question, as there too, PRASA was busy evicting the homeless off their property near the station and the dealer and runner concentration was already saturated.
In Mowbray the drug trade is already so well established that it happens in the main road in broad daylight.
This necessitated a move for some of the dealers and runners supplying that criminal element moving out of the Observatory area into the Wynberg and Claremont area. This made it even more convenient and lucrative for the runners and pushers whose affluent client base had been complaining about having to expose themselves at the hotspot that Mowbray has become. It's now facilitated their selling and delivery service to their preferred affluent client base in the area.
Unfortunately the presence of the Haven and U-turn doesn't help in this situation. Those organisations are funded for specific projects that impact on a small group of people and for an extended period of time. Only those that are part of these programs benefit from the services these organisations offer and they have little or no impact on reducing the number of people living on the streets.
What can residents do?
Residents must get their facts together and demand that the City take responsibility for a situation they are inadvertently causing with their evictions and subsequent displacements.
Communities should insist on being involved in finding solutions for the homeless issue in their area and form a continuum of care that includes their councilor, rate payers, businesses, people with lived experience of homelessness, churches, NGOs, law enforcement agencies and members of the homeless community.
Together this task team must honestly and diligently determine who their homeless community is and what services they require to come off the streets and then find ways of providing dignified and supportive alternative accommodation options for the elderly, disabled, those with mental health challenges that can be medicated, abused moms with kids and families rendered homeless through job losses.
They must also inform themselves on illegal activities of the pushers, runners , and the criminal element within their area and demand SAPS interventions.
Inform the police of where drugs are being sold from, insist the police do regular morph and touch sweeps in the area to ensure those in the area with outstanding warrants and cases are arrested and make the area feel unwelcoming for criminal activity through effective and visible law enforcement presence where it's most needed.
This will dissuade their student and affluent client base from buying in the area for fear of exposure and arrest and difficult for the pushers and dealers and criminal element amongst the homeless population to operate from.
Residents must report any criminal activity and ensure charges are laid and followed through.
What the community must not do is merely call and report the collective known as the homeless because this is what is happening now and the cause of the problems we are facing.
Seeing the homeless as a collective and dealing with homelessness as a one size fits all solution is precisely why the residents of Claremont are experiencing what they are experiencing.
Communities need to do what the City cannot do. Get to know who your collective homeless are.
Provide services and accommodation options that that particular community needs and then address the criminality.
In so doing, you are not as the City is currently doing, try and force an entire collective that they for convenience call 'the homeless' and in the process just move the problem along to another area.
Homelessness is primarily a societal creation and problem. It stems from our rejection of certain groups of people or our abuse of individuals and as such, it can only be solved by the communities involved.
If the City does not start becoming honest about the homeless situation in Cape Town and allow for communities to lead in addressing their areas' homeless issue, then this situation will just keep spreading and keep getting worse.
Because you see, although some move on to capture other areas, the unsustainable manner in which we currently address this issue, does not completely eradicate it in the area it stems from, it just looks that way for a while it builds up again unchecked.
* Mesquita is a previously homeless man and founder of Outsider, an organisation focused on enlightening people on homelessness and on accommodating those living on the streets in a dignified and sustainable manner.
Cape Argus
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