COLUMN: Carlos Mesquita writes that the extent of homelessness in South Africa is extremely difficult to ascertain, and that this in turn points to our greatest failure in addressing homelessness.File picture: Independent Newspaper
The extent of homelessness in South Africa is extremely difficult to ascertain. Let me at this point highlight that this in turn points to our greatest failure in addressing homelessness. We have no credible data available that quantifies and qualifies homelessness.
This means that millions are being spent on interventions that are based on assumption, misconception and myths.
It is imperative to know approximately how many people are living on the streets, how they landed up on the streets and what interventions will assist them to leave the streets.
In an attempt to start this process, the Organisation, Outsider, started a count and assessment of those living on the streets of Cape Town, called Everybody Counts in 2023.
This count was led by individuals with lived experience of being homeless, which is imperative, as these are the only individuals that know where people living on the streets are to be found and are at times also the only ones trusted enough to do the assessments.
During this count, which saw all 116 wards in Cape Town visited, 24 808 people were physically counted living on the streets of Cape Town and 14002 filled in 4 page questionnaires. This makes Everybody Counts the largest and most comprehensive database of people living on the streets in South Africa.
The extent of Homelessness is also dependent on one's definition of homelessness. Some would say it should include those living in shacks as well. Everybody Counts did not include shack dwellers, although they consider these individuals to be homeless too.
With regards to the change in numbers during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, the numbers look and are claimed by City administrators and politicians, to have increased drastically. This is not necessarily true. The numbers we suddenly saw swell up on the streets during the pandemic, point rather to the sudden visibility of those, who up until that point had been “the hidden homeless”. The “hidden homeless”, refers to those living on the streets that due to law enforcement interventions had moved deeper and deeper out of sight in the preceding years.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown forced those who had withdrawn from view to re-emerge in their desperate need for food and other basic items.
Post the pandemic, there was, without a doubt, an increase in numbers of those living on the streets.
This was due to those already vulnerable to potentially becoming homeless due to lack of job security prior to the pandemic, having their worst fears realized post the pandemic.
The reason for administrators and politicians using Covid-19 as the sole reason for the spike in numbers is that it afforded them the opportunity of avoiding having to admit the failure of their policies on addressing homelessness to that point.
There are many causes of homelessness from being discharged from state institutions such as prisons, foster care, rehabilitation centres and mental health facilities onto the streets to families unable or unwilling to accommodate the elderly, the disabled, those with addictions, those with mental health issues, people who have lost their homes through job losses, divorce, death of a parent or partner, unsuccessful relocations and many others.
The problem is that we have been conditioned to believe that people living on the streets are to blame for the fact that they landed up on the streets. They are blamed for making bad decisions and wrong choices.
People often miss the fact that if one looks at all these causes of homelessness, the common denominator is rejection.
Rejection for being old, for having mental health issues, for being disabled, for being gay, for being unemployed and this rejection often comes from family and friends.
People experiencing rejection without a safety net, will land up on the streets.
It is we, as a society that has to change our mindset about and our behaviour towards those already vulnerable in society.
Homelessness is a societal issue which only communities can address.
* 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.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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