Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis visiting a Safe Space. Picture: supplied
I am extremely angry this week. I am angry because I have spent the past two weeks trying to accommodate people living on the streets in dignified and sustainable places of accommodation, with the assistance of a small group of donors.
And we have had to do this because THIS CITY DOESN’T CARE FOR YOU if you happen to live on the streets.
And I am going to explain to you why I say this.
I don’t believe that certain groups of individuals should ever have to be subjected to the hardness, danger and the indignity of sleeping on the streets.
These groups would include elderly persons, disabled persons, abused moms with kids and families who land up on the streets due to financial challenges. These individuals should not be living on the streets nor living in shelters and safe spaces.
These individuals should be living in dignified, sustainable, affordable and private lockable rooms at the very least.
These groups currently make up at least half of those we call ”homeless”, yet they can clearly be assisted off the streets and into dignified sustainable occupation if given a hand-up.
This hand-up would include finding them private, lockable rooms where they are able to live independent lives.
They would have to be provided with rental assistance while they are assisted in getting their IDs, grants and the likes. Thereafter, they can pay their own way, become self-sufficient and be able to live reintegrated lives as fully participating members of society.
But what is the City of Cape Town doing? Instead of addressing this issue, they are contributing to the growing crisis.
Why do I say this? This is what is happening behind the scenes: a perfect example of how the City and mayor say one thing and do the another.
The City was recently granted their long-awaited court order to “evict” approximately 124 individuals from seven hot spots in the CBD, conditional to them being able to provide these individuals with accommodation.
In court, the City’s lawyers confirmed that they had enough space to accommodate these individuals at Safe Space 1. Fact of the matter is that there is no space available at Safe Space 1.
In actual fact, although capacitated to accommodate 230 individuals, it now accommodates close to 300 individuals!
This would not usually deter the City. After all, these evictions are not really meant to get people off the streets They are merely meant to clear up those specific areas that the City wants free of “the homeless”, with very little concern given to where these individuals go next.
But this time, the court stipulated it would be supervising both the eviction and accommodation of those addressed in the court order. And so the City had no choice but to ensure that they are compliant and can accommodate the 124 at Safe Space 1. And so what do they do? They send an instruction to the service provider at their safe spaces to reduce the number of residents. How is this done?
By giving residents over a certain age and those who have been there longer than six months notice that they have to leave the safe spaces by August 30. (A day before they have to take in the 124 they told the courts they had place for at safe space 1.)
And so, while we are trying our best to reduce the number of elderly people already living on the streets, the City is evicting some more onto the streets in order to look as if they are being sincere and honest with the courts and the ratepayers of Cape Town, when they say that evictions are always their last resort and even then, those being evicted are always offered alternative accommodation and services.
Ja well, no fine! But what is being achieved when one group is being accommodated at the expense of another group being evicted back onto the streets, merely to keep the narrative that “THE CITY CARES FOR YOU” alive?
The safe spaces are a failed intervention, with the City’s own financial statements of 2023 divulging a 2.5% success rate. An intervention where only 5% of the R8.5 million a year budget goes towards the upliftment of “the homeless”.
It is a public relations exercise to make the City look good, yet keeps those living on the streets imprisoned in perpetual homelessness.
* Carlos Mesquita is an activist for the homeless and a researcher working in the Western Cape Legislature for the GOOD Party.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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