City’s homeless: SPF salutes research, but seeks assurances
ON THURSDAY, August 6, the City of Cape Town held a media briefing to release a summary of the research conducted by city-appointed researcher Lynn Hendricks on homelessness in the city.
The Street People’s Forum (SPF) welcomes this project. It congratulates researcher Lynn Hendricks on conducting her work in a conscientious and ethical way.
We are keen to see the full report to glean more in-depth insight into the clients that our member organisations serve.
Furthermore, the SPF is encouraged by recent developments in the sector which demonstrate that the directorate is leading the City in more effective and humane containment strategies for anti-social behaviour on the streets, notably the Streetscapes programme run by Khulisa in partnership with UTurn, Service Dining Rooms and Straatwerk.
The research will contribute greatly to such ventures.
The SPF is disappointed it was not appraised of the results before they were released to the media, despite a commitment to do so.
When the research was initiated in June 2014 the SPF and its members were only notified of their expected participation in this major city-wide research project one week before it was due to commence. This was met with anger by organisations who had very little time to prepare or offer input on the structure and methodology.
Despite this, many of the SPF’s member organisations were actively involved over the yearlong implementation, but urged the City to engage with the sector and ensure the research could be completed ethically and as accurately as possible. The City committed to engage with the sector through stakeholder meetings organised by Cornelia Finch, project manager of the directorate’s Street People department.
Global experience suggests that cities with good collaboration with civil society have better results in addressing social issues. Considerable effort has gone into cultivating a relationship of mutual trust between the SPF and the direc- torate to mend a long-standing relationship of antagonism.
Sadly, this has mostly been a one-way effort with only grudging reciprocation by officials.
Communication has been poor and meetings regularly postponed or cancelled with short notice. Requests for information regarding budgets and implementation plans have been ignored or stalled.
The City continues to present its relationship with civil society as a constructive one, trotting out figures of questionable validity which SPF members cannot substantiate. Since many organisations are providers to the City of services for street-based people, this behaviour puts our members in a compromised position.
Given the continued disregard for the SPF and its members, the SPF resolves that a more productive way to proceed is to take engagement with the directorate into the public realm. Continuing to engage behind closed doors only serves to perpetuate the perception of complicity with the City and frustrate public accountability.
The SPF therefore would like to use this opportunity to urge the directorate to publish the full research report without reduction. It also urges the City to publish a full account of how the Street People department in the directorate spends its funds in alleviating the plight of street-based people.
While the SPF is wellacquainted with the City’s policies it is yet to have sight of the directorate’s vaunted “plan”. The SPF is keen to know in what way its members’ experience will be, if at all, utilised in this plan.
We hope the directorate will now demonstrate to the public it is sincere about making a difference to the City’s alienated citizens on the streets.