[imagesource:creativecommons]

A group of homeless people who have set up a makeshift tent village at the Sea Point tennis courts have said they are willing to move, but only to a place “conducive to human habitation with running water and proper ablution facilities.”

The City of Cape Town filed a new eviction order last month, but with some people having lived there for nearly six years, relocating the homeless will be challenging.

One of the residents, Ndyebo Mgijima, says that he understands why the city would want to evict them as the site has been ‘infiltrated’ over the years by drug addicts and criminals, making the area unsafe for both the tent-dwellers as well as residents.

“Some of us here make an honest living and are educated, or at least we have passed Grade 12, but life has not been good to some, or maybe we are not lucky enough to have supportive families, hence we find ourselves in this situation,” he says. In an IOL interview, Mgijima claims that not all of the people living here are “vandalising and causing havoc”, and that many of the residents also want a safe area.

“We do want to make this place a clean and safe place, not only for us but for the people that live around us.”

But locals are fed up. The area is littered with trash, smells of urine everywhere, and sections of the tennis court fencing have been removed.

Mgijima claims that the damage is due to drug addicts who come to cause chaos and remove fencing at night. Locals have now asked the city to give them proper housing, and if not, work in collaboration with them to make the area safer and cleaner.

“We need proper fencing and security that will be on guard day and night to ensure law and order. Also, maybe some of us can be employed as cleaners and recyclers to ensure that the place is kept neat at all times,” he said.

The City of Cape Town said on September 22 that the City and Empext, who manages a portion of the property, issued an eviction application regarding the unlawful occupation at the tennis courts. The interdict included a call to prohibit the residents from re-occupying the site after eviction, but with no other place to go, the residents of the make-shift village said they would have no choice but to come back.

The application will be heard on December 12, 2023, with the eviction notice served on the respondents on September 29, 2023. In turn, the city has offered  ‘social support and dignified transitional shelter.’

The city added: “The property is not suitable for habitation and that continued unlawful occupation poses serious health risks to both the occupants and the broader public, while also impacting public use of these facilities.”

“The City intends to continue to engage with the respondents in a meaningful manner and remains open to concrete proposals regarding vacating the City’s property.”

It would seem that the residents of Seapoint will have to wait a while longer to see if there is a mutually acceptable way forward.

With homeless ‘villages’ an increasing challenge for the city, this is another smouldering fire that needs to be handled with care and compassion, but also with the rights of everyone in mind.

[source:iol]