Call to remove vagrants
Houses belonging to Public Works Department taken over by homeless
RESIDENTS in Wynberg are fuming after three houses owned by the Department of Public Works (DPW) have become home to vagrants.
The residents who live in close proximity of the derelict buildings are calling for the department to urgently secure the houses and make sure they are no longer refuge to the homeless.
“We have been, and are continually, subject to criminal activity perpetrated by the vagrants, drug addicts and homeless people who are illegally occupying the DPW houses and adjacent open field.
“This anti-social activity includes break-ins at our homes, break-ins to vehicles parked on roads, petty theft in the neighbourhood and threatening behaviour towards residents,” said Evelyn John Holtzhausen, a resident.
He said the residents of Cavan Road and school children from Wynberg Girls’ High School are subjected to vagrants daily.
The three homes are located in Waterloo Green.
“Vagrants are openly having sex, defecating, urinating and washing themselves and their clothes in the canalised river that runs through the open field,” he said.
The residents have done everything they can to complain to the department of public works and compel them to fix the three derelict homes.
Ward councillor Elizabeth Brunette, has spent the past four years trying to get the department to secure the homes.
“I have been asking the national department for four years to secure the property.
“It remains a national issue which means there is very little the city can do about this,” she said.
The department said it was aware of the issue.
“There are two houses, with the third house being occupied by a client department, which then vacated the property without letting the DPW know,” said Thami Mchunu, a spokesperson.
Mchunu said there were two “No Dumping” signs on the site. He also did not divulge any plans to secure the area.