Cape Town - The City of Cape Town is still scrambling to place more than 4 000 homeless people in the CBD as the nation enters Day Four of the 21-day lockdown.
This comes after proposed sites recommended by the City were rejected by the national government.
Mayco member for community and health services Zahid Badroodien said: “The City is undertaking to make available sites in all four geographical areas in the next week, where street people can be housed during the lockdown. The search for temporary shelter is taking some time after initial sites, touted by the national government, were withdrawn. We understand there has been immense interest in this particular issue, and we assure the public that we are doing everything possible to provide safe spaces for our street people during this challenging time.”
On Saturday, the City started moving homeless residents to a temporary shelter. The parking lot adjacent to the City’s Culemborg Safe Space will be the first site to be utilised.
A tent was erected, along with sanitation facilities, as well as implementation of appropriate social distancing measures. Work is also under way at the Paint City site in Bellville, while sites have also been identified in Somerset West, Muizenberg and Fish Hoek.
“The primary goal is to get people into shelters. We got our first location in the City, the Culemborg site, which demonstrates the urgent need in the City. We had a positive meeting with Minister of Public Works Patricia De Lille on where we are looking to shelter the homeless,” Badroodien said.
Mayor Dan Plato said: “We are still dealing with the issue of finding sites. We are still looking at sites to unlock and I’d like to also stress that previously, when we had space available, the homeless did not want to assist the City. Now, when we have this outbreak, they want to be assisted. All spheres of government are involved.”
Currently during the lockdown period the City’s social workers are not working in the field because of the health risk it poses to them. Many shelters are full and cannot accommodate any more homeless people.
CEO of Cape Town Central Improvement District (CCID) Tesso Evangelinos said: “We are aware of this. Existing shelters for the homeless community in and around the city centre are full and cannot accommodate any more street people. Certain of these shelters are also in lockdown. New temporary shelters to cope with housing downtown Cape Town’s homeless community – which is the biggest in the Western Cape - in a safe environment during lockdown were identified by the City.”
CCID social development manager Pat Eddy said:“ As a community, they are very vulnerable to a pandemic like coronavirus, so it is paramount that temporary shelter space is made available as a matter of urgency. The community is scared as they are high-risk,” he said.
De Lille's spokesperson, Zara Nicholson said: “Public works has only assisted to identify sites that we own as national public works and offers from the private sector and provincial governments.”
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