The City of Cape Town’s intention to “evict” homeless people, the provincial government’s lack of knowledge about and concern for the homeless, and the national minister’s statement that there is no department that addresses street homelessness – along with the national figures on homelessness she revealed – are all a shocking revelation.
They are a shocking revelation of the impact of the national government’s failure to provide the country with a strategy, a policy – and I would go so far as a commission, if not a department on people living on the street – a crisis impacted on by, and impacting on all the citizens of this country.
Who are the people living on the streets?
The elderly, the disabled, the individual with mental challenges, the LBGTQI+ youth, abused women with children, people addicted to substances, people released from prisons, people who lost their jobs without a safety net. These are all vulnerable and minority groups that are the government’s responsibility.
The Department of Social Development is responsible for the elderly, the disabled and those with mental challenges and the government is required to provide safe, affordable, permanent and specialist accommodation to these groups. And if they did, it would halve the homeless population.
Our national government, which is tasked with upholding our Constitution, a constitution that prioritises all of the above in championing the vulnerable, has seriously shown the Constitution the middle finger!
The provincial government of the Western Cape is not much better, with its policy on shelters borne out of necessity when they virtually handed over their mandated duties to NGOs.
During a sitting of the provincial legislature last week, I was shocked by Premier Alan Winde’s ignorance of those living on the streets and finding it acceptable to answer questions pertaining to the lazy, dirty vagrants that do nothing but drugs all day and then want to come jumping the housing queue.
Which is a polite synopsis of how Freedom Front Plus member Peter Marais referred to those living on the streets and Premier Winde followed suit in saying that it also worried him.
The rest of his answers resembled someone that was given a crash course on homelessness.
Winde must have bunked class and been prepared by the mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis who, in turn, is very ill-informed by the arrogant and vindictive City department of social development.
Since Strandfontein, the court case and my becoming a voice for the homeless it has been very eager to feed any story that may discredit me.
This being in stark contrast with my having received commendations from both Suzette Little and Beverley Cortje-Alcock, whom I have now known for over 10 years and can verify my commitment to this task.
Add to this the service providers mandated by virtue of their funding to be advisers and it is no wonder the mayor denounced what I say.
The previous Mayco member for social development, Dr Zahid Badroodien, did the same until he got to know me.
In trying to falsely accuse me of misleading the public, he is caught as the one doing the misleading.
On Monday, I was asked to talk about my open letter to the mayor the previous week on Lester Kiewit’s morning show on Cape Talk, which focused on the looming City evictions of some homeless groups.
An hour after my interview, I was called by Primedia and told the reaction had been such that they would like to have an in-studio discussion with us both present. I agreed but all the mayor wanted was an opportunity to respond.
He said that I was misleading the public by saying the City planned on evicting 5 000 people when it’s only 500.
I never said that.
In fact, I did the opposite in ensuring the public knew that if the court orders were granted in April, then the City could only evict the 137 at the seven spots in the CBD, which the mayor then called “shy of 200” when he appeared on Newzroom Afrika and has now self-adjusted to 500 on Cape Talk.
And that is exactly the reason I am concerned. How many more will be evicted illegitimately until then?
The one question I asked of him in my open letter was if he was aware of and, if so, did he support the evictions carried out in Green Point, Woodstock and the CBD that week.
* Carlos Mesquita.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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