A Mitchell’s Plain non-profit organisation wants the City of Cape Town and local police stations to stop criminalising people living on the streets.
Pastor Dean Ramjoomia, from Nehemiah Call Initiative (NCI), said while Town Centre was a focused economic hub there were 600 people living on the streets across Mitchell’s Plain.
In June the City put out a statement detailing how to help people get off the streets after the national Covid-19 lockdown.
“Due to the termination of the national State of Disaster, the courts are no longer required by regulation to consider suspending evictions,” read the media statement.
The NCI hosted a Mitchell’s Plain indaba which focused on why people live on the streets and the harsh realities of living rough. It was held in Beacon Valley, on Tuesday August 2.
SAPS, City of Cape Town and Department of Social Development (DSD) representatives did not attend.
Mr Ramjoomia said the systemic failure was alarming as the plight of people living on the streets was falling on deaf ears.
When Mr Ramjoomia took the Plainsman on a walkabout in Town Centre on Saturday August 13, among those we saw were a man kneeling on the tarmac, licking up water in the Town Centre parking lot.
Another man picked up a half eaten apple to take a hungry bite and further down the lanes were a group of people with needles in their arms.
Elsewhere was a wheelchair-bound man huddled in a lane, buckets tied to his wheelchair.
Mr Ramjoomia said both the municipality, in particular law enforcement, and the police had to recognise people living on the streets “as equal persons deserving respect”.
“Their belongings can’t just be discarded and damaged at the officer’s discretion. Not all of them are gangsters and want to stay on the streets,” he said.
Yaseen Michaels, 28, from Eastridge, started roaming the streets about three years ago.
He would go home occasionally stopped about three months ago after his parents died a week apart.
Mr Michaels said it was tough living in the lanes of Town Centre, especially when it was cold. “You can’t really rest. You must be vigilant and aware of your surroundings at all times,” he said.
He has tried to go home several times but due to his addiction to heroin and methamphetamine (tik) he had done things that he is not proud of and his family is not ready to forgive him.
Mr Michaels was expelled from school in Grade 11, for selling dagga.
He then went to Protea College to study hospitality but dropped out because of his drug addiction.
He had picked up some contract work, he said, but most of what he earned went toward feeding his habit.
He also looked after hawkers’ stalls but had again lost out because of misdemeanours.
“Life in the Town Centre is about survival but this is not my final destination. I want to change. This is not what I deserve,” he said.
Mr Michaels told Plainsman he had cut back on his drug usage by about half in recent months. He now uses drugs about three times a day.
To make money, he collects plastic and cardboard, which he takes to the scrap shop.
In the last two years in Town Centre he has relapsed a few times but in recent months his three-day a week visits to the U-turn assessment centre, in Town Centre, has him on the road to recovery.
Mr Ramjoomia and U-turn have been supporting Mr Michaels for the past two years.
Part of Mr Ramjoomia’s work involves referring people living on the streets to various services, including the day hospital, drug rehabilitation centres and U-turn, a registered Christian non-government organisation (NGO), aimed at rehabilitating and reintegrating people living on the streets with their families.
Included in Mr Ramjoomia’s tasks were home visits, forging relationships and giving the homeless alternatives to living on the streets.
Mr Ramjoomia said many of the people who left their homes to live on the streets, did not know what they were getting themselves into.
“But at the same time everyone is saying go back home,” he noted, “but have you seen the house?”
Often, said Mr Ramjoomia, the house was falling apart, it was not clean, the environment was often hostile and several families could not afford to feed as many mouths.
U-Turn director Jean-Ray Knighton-Fitt, who attended the indaba said it was important to create safe environments for people to live in.
Their phased programme starts with meeting people’s basic needs, like food and clothing at their first phase service centre; then on to drug and alcohol rehabilitation support; and finally culminates in a work-based learnership that lasts on average 19- months. This programme, called Life change, nurtures an individual’s personal and vocational skills, as well as working on relapse prevention.
Six months after graduating from the programme, more than 80% of participants remain employed and sober.
Mayoral committee member for community services and health, Patricia Van der Ross, confirmed that people were living on the streets in Town Centre, at Lentegeur train station, at Liberty Promenade mall, in areas that offer some form of economic or social opportunity and or benefit.
When Plainsman asked the City about services available to people living on the streets in Mitchell’s Plain, Ms Van der Ross responded: “The City recently disbursed grant-in-aid funding to a list of organisations working with street people.”
One of the beneficiaries on the list is U-Turn.
“The City goes above and beyond its municipal mandate to help people off the streets, including in the Mitchell’s Plain area, through daily interventions by our street people programme unit,” she added.
Ms Van der Ross said assistance was offered and had to be accepted voluntarily as “no one can be forced to accept assistance”.
“It should further be noted that not all individuals who are sleeping on the street in Mitchell’s Plain and other areas around Cape Town are necessarily homeless.
“In some instances they leave home due to family conflict or other social issues, like substance abuse and criminal activity,” said Ms Van Der Ross.