Durban – The decision by the eThekwini municipality to use money meant to accommodate homeless people to buy tractors, has raised concerns among those working to address the issue of homelessness in the city.
The city announced recently that due to delays in building the homeless shelter, funds meant for this will be given to the Parks and Recreation unit to buy tractors. It is expected the money will be returned for its original purpose in the coming financial year.
About R8.1 million had been reallocated from the project to the parks unit.
Raymond Perrier of the Denis Hurley Centre which works to assist homeless people said this development was disappointing but not surprising.
“As someone who cares about the homeless in Durban and has been at the forefront of initiatives to improve their situation. I am of course disappointed that even less money will be spent by eThekwini on this pressing issue. But, at the same time, I confess that I had very little confidence that the homeless would see R8.1 million of value from the axed project.”
“My scepticism is reinforced by the memory of eThekwini claiming that it spent R66 million helping the homeless during lockdown,” he said.
He said this money (R8.1m) was due to be spent not on a shelter (i.e. a building) but just on creating a ‘safe open sleeping space’ – effectively formalising the tented communities occupied by about 500 homeless men which are a legacy of the Covid-19 lockdown shelters.
“Given that the planned piece of land already belonged to eThekwini it is shocking that it might have cost R8.1 million to build (according to the plans that I saw) an ablution block, a kitchen and some awnings of the sort used in car parks,” he said.