When will we act on a housing solution? Joint efforts needed to address homelessness

ONCE again the Cape Times trumpets from its front page (Friday May 28) the cause of the homeless and promotes the cause of Ndifuna Ukwazi, but offers little by way of a solution to the problem of our homeless in the metro.

Just as spectators at a sports event jeer and shout the odds yet add not one iota to the score, these side-line commentators propose no solutions yet take up many inches of column space.

They say they seek affordable housing solutions when, in fact, they are seeking free housing since the homeless would, for the greater part, not have the income to pay for anything.

I wait eagerly for the day when headlines resound with: “Civic organisations, media and big business join hands with the City to create a solution to the housing problem” or am I being overly ambitious since good news is not sensational enough? HOMELESSNESS is a blot on our society. It's dreadful to think of people who have nothing and are forced to live under a bit of plastic either in the baking heat or in the rain and cold.

But sadly the City is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.

Tents and shelters being put up in parks, public spaces and pavements is not the solution as the City gets many complaints from shop owners whose businesses are being affected, people wanting to go to their nearest park for recreation but can't, bad behaviour in their neighbourhoods, etc.

But what is the solution? When the first lockdown came the homeless were moved to Strandfontein but that was a disaster. Does anyone know why?

They had shelter, toilets, showers, meals? Was it because it was too far from the city?

I had heard it was because they couldn't get drugs which they were used to on the streets?

The City, by asking ratepayers, residents and business owners to add their voice to the discussion, is a good thing as the more minds put to this problem the better.

One of the arguments is, and I quote: “Allow people to live on the street with more dignity”.

There is no dignity in living on the street. There are no toilets or showers to do one's ablutions. Nowhere to cook a meal.

The only solution is setting up more shelters but of course with shelters comes rules and often the homeless do not want to comply, as we saw in Strandfontein.

But hopefully among the thousands of concerned people out there something will come of this initiative.

I know Durban has found some solutions so maybe the Cape Town council needs to get together with the Durban council and see if they can help one another?

One of the things they did was give the drug addicts a fix per day so they were happy to stay where they were put. It's worth a shot. But we can't carry on like this.