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Cape Town has a serious homelessness problem on its hands.

Despite coming under fire for how it handles this crisis, the DA managed to win around 58% of the vote in the City of Cape Town.

Other topics are clearly higher on the agenda for voters in and around Cape Town.

The proposed by-law changes dealing with the issue have since passed, many of which essentially criminalise homelessness.

A new 400-page report, compiled by The Inkathalo Conversations (TIC), has made more than 150 recommendations regarding areas where the city could improve.

The report, covered by GroundUp, “criticises the local government’s current response to homelessness and questions its processes that produced the recent changes to City by-laws”.

Those changes passed on September 29 and are not in line with the recommendations set forward by the TIC:

The report covers eight general areas, including the criminalisation of homeless people, and the institutional drivers of homelessness.

It also features “special reports” on what it calls homeless tax, and on the controversial Strandfontein Camp that was established by the City for local homeless people as a response to the Covid pandemic.

You may recall that things went south very quickly at the Strandfontein Camp, with the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) saying “the site is in gross violation of national and international human rights and must be closed down with immediate effect”.

The TIC report offers a number of suggestions to better deal with homelessness, including:

Law Enforcement officers should be retrained for dealing with homelessness.

A R1 levy by all homeowners specifically for homelessness interventions.

24-hour access to adequate and free ablution facilities, access to showers and waste facilities.

Safe and secure storage spaces for homeless people to store their personal belongings.

The City of Cape Town should include homelessness as a criterion for emergency housing.

A R1 levy seems like something we can all suck up in order to try and improve the lives of Cape Town’s homeless, right?

In response, City Spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said the report is being reviewed.

One area where the issue of homelessness has really come to the fore is Sea Point. You may recall that in May of last year, a man’s car was torched after he came under fire for feeding homeless people.

On Facebook, debates raged and residents were divided on the topic.

Fast forward to the recent election, and the DA retained Sea Point, with Nicola Jowell retaining her position as ward councillor with more than 80% support.

In the lead-up to the election, reports The Daily Maverick, the Freedom Front Plus candidate “was accused of being linked to campaign flyers depicting naked or partially dressed homeless people”.

The flyers bore the question, “Why are vagrants still in occupation of the Atlantic Seaboard?”

[sources:groundup&dailymaverick]