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The City Of Cape Town’s approach to dealing with homelessness has been largely successful, despite the numerous challenges.

Geordin Hill-Lewis, the Mayor of Cape Town, has shared a few insights from the City’s experience in restoring public places and extending a hand of care to the homeless via the Daily Maverick.

He said he wants to raise these issues to increase public awareness of what it takes to offer care to the vulnerable and manage public places sustainably, adding that he hopes the model will also help well-meaning people of influence in South Africa’s other cities who share Cape Town’s vision.

Over the past few months, the City of Cape Town has obtained several eviction orders for makeshift homeless encampments across the city. Last week, the first large order was carried out when those individuals residing unlawfully at the Green Point Tennis Courts were legally removed.

The eviction looked rough at the moment, but what many don’t realise is that these kinds of orders follow 18 months of meticulous work and planning, with an “unprecedented effort to offer care and support to all of those living at these public places”, the Mayor said.

Implementing dignified and compassionate solutions to address the unlawful occupation of public spaces presents a significant challenge for any South African city – financially, legally, and operationally – but Cape Town is setting the bar high.

“I would like to share four insights from Cape Town in light of several recent high court eviction orders backing the City’s sustainable solutions offered as alternative accommodation,” Hill-Lewis wrote.

 

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First of all, in Green Point, sections of the east CBD, and along Victoria Road, the City extended shelter to every individual, demonstrating care and respect by providing comprehensive psychosocial support to all.

This is the first crucial insight: Cities must be prepared to make a substantial investment in expanding dignified transitional shelter using their own funding, despite not holding a constitutional mandate or designated budgets for social welfare. This is necessary as NGO-run night shelters are insufficient to meet the challenge, and there is no national funding forthcoming to change this.

Hill-Lewis divulged that Cape Town is investing a quarter of a billion rand to expand and operate its “Safe Space” facilities over three years, which offer dignified shelter coupled with a range of social support services to help people off the streets sustainably.

On top of the funding provided to already existing NGO shelters, a 300-bed Safe Space is opening for this winter in Green Point with the City also set to offer more than 1,000 beds across the Cape Town CBD soon, with a growing footprint in other parts of the city.

The second insight from our care programme, is that the law and courts system as it stands, demand that cities dedicate extensive resources to managing the complex web of legal processes required to legally evict people from public places.

Where a person erects any structure that is deemed a dwelling under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction (PIE) Act, legislation requires cities to approach the courts for an eviction order before removing any person from an area. But since the courts are inundated, bureaucracy reigns, and SAPS availability and resources are often scarce, these court orders are often granted on the 11th hour.

All of these delays only serve to extend a person’s undignified and unhealthy stay on the streets, particularly for those who sadly refuse all offers of social support, despite getting off the streets being the best choice for their well-being, safety and health.

This is why seeking eviction orders is a last resort only once we have made all of our care interventions and offers of dignified alternative accommodation.

The third insight is that it is incredibly challenging for officials to collect data on the homeless and survey their social circumstances, which is a prerequisite for gaining an eviction order.

People living on the streets often move location throughout the day, and change where they sleep at any time, depending on income-generation activities. Some may not have identification, while others may refuse, give false information, or are in no condition to speak to the City’s social workers owing to addiction issues.

The extensive human resources required, along with the coordination from a capable state, to identify and survey each person, and document their personal circumstances and responses to offers of social support is overwhelming and delays in court processes only compound this problem.

To manage this, Cape Town invests in resourcing teams of social development professionals, as well as our Displaced Peoples Unit, who work in tandem daily to offer support to people living on the street.

At the moment, a credible estimate of 6,630 persons are living on Cape Town’s streets, which is an increase from the 4,000 counted in the City’s 2018/19 enumeration that can be especially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and related economic impact. That’s a lot of people to track and manage at all times.

The fourth observation highlights that cities are limited to taking action only on land that they possess, yet many of the larger tented encampments are situated on sites owned by various national government departments.

For years, people have been vocal about the homeless shelters posing problems at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, but the Department of Defence and National Department of Public Works, who manage this facility and the grounds immediately surrounding it, have not acted with any urgency to clear the area.

Only recently have these departments restored this site and improved public safety around it – perhaps accelerated thanks to the new monthly market to take place on the castle grounds.

Despite all these “profound difficulties”, Hill-Lewis said the City’s recent successes show that “we have a model that works”, adding that they are cautiously optimistic that they can restore public places and extend a hand of care to the homeless.

[source:dailymaverick]