healthy start
Bhisho calls on social development to do more to assist after oversight visit
BANISHING THE BLUES: Marvin Prince, 35, of Gelvandale, enjoys breakfast with fellow residents at the Daku hall in Kwazakhele yesterday. Members of the provincial legislature conducted oversight visits to several community halls in the metro that have been turned into shelters for the homeless during the coronavirus crisis.
Members of the Eastern Cape legislature have called on the department of social development to do more to support temporary homeless shelters in Nelson Mandela Bay.
During an oversight tour of shelters in the city yesterday, DA MPL Edmund van Vuuren and deputy chair of chairs Tony Duba heard how food supplies at two of the shelters were insufficient, that substance abuse had led to some residents being expelled and that lack of personal protective equipment was a problem.
The delegates, who included Bay councillors and officials from the departments of social development and health, visited the Daku community hall in Kwazakhele, the Jarman hall in Schauderville, the Walmer community hall and the Gelvan Park Frail Aged Home.
The halls have been converted into temporary shelters for the duration of the Covid19 lockdown.
At the frail care home, nursing services manager Make Fadzanai told the group that there had been a Covid-19 outbreak at the facility and one resident had died.
“It started with our driver — she tested positive, but she’s already recovered.
“Our first resident, who spent 10 days in hospital [after contracting the virus], passed away.
“We’ve had additional staff members who’ve tested positive and recovered.
“We made sure all of the people who came into contact had been isolated and staff quarantined until cleared,” he said.
Despite the food shortfalls at two of the three homeless shelters visited by the group, residents of Kwazakhele’s Daku community hall are not going hungry.
Vuyokazi Nkewu-Langbooi, who runs the Daku shelter, said its residents enjoyed three meals a day, and that those on chronic medication also received a late-night snack.
Residents had also been given three donated cloth face masks each.
However, lack of heating and electricity outages were an issue at the Daku hall, particularly now that winter had arrived.
“We’re able to provide four meals a day for our residents but this hall is cold.
“I bring a blanket for myself every day when I come to work,” Nkewu-Langbooi said.
“Other issues include electricity problems.
“Initially, we also had issues [with] substance abuse because these are people we took in from the streets and they already had their habits, but we’re monitoring this and security does constant checks around the yard to see that people are not smoking inside the facility,” she said.
Nkewu-Langbooi said the police had been called in to stop the use of illicit substances.
She said several non-government organisations had donated masks for Daku’s residents.
A resident at the Walmer Town Hall said they received three meals a day — but these mainly consisted of porridge.
The homeless shelter is having to rely mainly on donations from the public and nonprofit organisations, and provisions are now running low.
A sSocial worker at the Jarman Hall shelter in Schauderville,
Trezenia Malgas, said there was not enough food.
“At the beginning when we first started feeding people, we received assistance from Meals on Wheels, where we provided three meals and two snacks.
“Somewhere in May or June, the feeding was done through
CNDC [Community Nutrition Development Centres] and at the moment CNDC provides two meals a day,” she said.
Malgas said the centre had recently received 1,000kg of maize meal which she hoped would assist staff to create a third daily meal for residents.
The delegates also heard that lack of personal protective equipment for residents was a problem at the Walmer and Jarman shelters.
Responding to what he had seen and heard, Duba commended the municipality for the manner in which it was tackling Covid-19.
“When the municipality saw there’s an issue of Covid-19 coming [on] strong, it had to provide shelter for homeless people. That initiative should be applauded.
“[But] we’re not happy with what we saw in Walmer.
“The person running the shelter is also a homeless person and you don’t get any sense of direction in terms of what they’re doing. social development needs to intervene there,” Duba said.
Van Vuuren said he believed the shelters were congested and, in some instances people slept too closely to each other.
“Social development is not taking responsibility for the meals and is leaving it to the CNDC ,but they didn’t give the CNDC an extra budget.
“Most of these [shelters] are dependent on sponsorship, so I’m not happy,” Van Vuuren said.
The social development department had failed to respond to questions by the time of going to print.