Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has committed to providing more than 300 shelter beds, and to creating two new safe space centres, to facilitate the move of homeless people from the streets and into functional shelters in 2023.
The City announced its plans and commitments on Tuesday, January 17 stating that over the next coming months, it would be adding at least 330 more transitional shelter beds in facilities across the city.
The City also revealed that it would soon be filing planning for approval applications to renovate two municipal-owned sites into Safe Spaces in Green Point and Durbanville, to expand dignified transitional shelters.
Safe Spaces facilities in the city of Cape Town offer two meals per day, showers and sanitation, and access to a range of care interventions, this includes referrals for mental health care, addiction treatment, job placement, family reunification, and help to get ID books.
According to the City, a 300-bed Safe Space is on the cards for Green Point, aimed to alleviate the need for more boarding rooms for homeless people based on the streets in the CBD and seaboard area.
The City said that it will be utilising an underutilised portion of the City’s roads depot situated under the fly-over bridge on Ebenezer Road, for the project.
“In total, there will be a 420-bed boost for Cape Town’s inner city, with around 120 shelter beds already added to the City’s Culemborg Safe Space in the east of the CBD during winter 2022.
“Yet more new beds will follow as the City works to help expand NGO-run shelters operating on municipal-owned land in central Cape Town, as well as the annual seasonal bed boost as part of the City’s Winter Readiness Campaign 2023,” the City said.
In Durbanville, the City said that it has plans to include a 30-bed facility in the new Durbanville Public Transport Interchange (PTI) development.
The Green Point and Durbanville proposals will reportedly follow the full regulatory and planning process before being implemented, during which the City will facilitate a process for residents and businesses to comment and advise on the plans.
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said: “Over the last year, we have shifted our policy to care interventions designed to help people off the streets on a sustainable basis, with the clear understanding that our city’s public spaces serve important economic and community needs.”
Hill-Lewis also said that no person has the right to reserve a public space as exclusively theirs, while indefinitely refusing all offers of shelter and social assistance.
“Accepting social assistance to leave the streets is the best choice for dignity, health, and well-being,” he said.
The new beds will bring Safe Space capacity up to 1 060 beds across several facilities in the CBD, Bellville, and Durbanville.
The City is also making progress on re-purposing its other municipal-owned sites in the metro.
“While many people accept offers of help to get off the streets, sadly there are also many cases where those unlawfully occupying public spaces have consistently refused all offers of social assistance.
“In these instances, the City will acquire the necessary court order, and ensure that alternative accommodation at shelters or Safe Spaces has been offered, where this is just and equitable,” Hill-Lewis said.
Community services and health Mayco Patricia van der Ross said the City of Cape Town, has committed more than R142 million rand over three years to expanding and operating Safe Spaces where these are most needed.
“This is over and above its ongoing support to NGOs assisting the homeless, including grant-in-aid funding and support to expand shelters operating on municipal land.
“Most of our residents living in public spaces suffer from mental afflictions, addiction, depression, psychosis, trauma, or familial abuse,” she said.
Van der Ross added that the City’s Social Development and ECD officials would continue with a city-wide process of conducting individual social assessments of those living on the streets.
“This includes the reasons for homelessness, physical and mental health, living conditions, and sources of income.
“This will result in a referral for social assistance, which can include accommodation at a shelter or City-run safe space,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Western Cape High Court recently ordered the eviction of a group of homeless people occupying the public open space on Baxter Street in Durbanville.
According to the City, it will be approaching the courts for similar orders for hot spots around the city, including the CBD.