Project Homeless Outreach Prevention and Education gives beneficiaries a second chance

Cape Town - Project Homelessness Outreach Prevention and Education (HOPE) offers a second chance to homeless people from across the city, creating jobs to sustain them during their recovery period.

Established in 2020, Project Hope addresses the needs of homeless persons in Sea Point, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay by offering services such as family reunification, reintegration into society and referrals to shelters and safe spaces.

It works with individuals who ended up in the streets due to different reasons from being unemployed, losing homes to being survivors of substance abuse.

Their holistic approach starts from motivating one to change from their ways to finding a shelter and recruiting them to a Community Care Ambassadors (CCA’s) team which currently has 30 members, all receive stipend to help pay rent or fees at the shelters and cover travelling costs.

It is funded by the Sea Point, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association.

According to a field worker coordinator, Kevin Alexander, CCAs are deployed in pairs for beach and street clean-ups daily.

“We offer various programmes to our clients to up-skill them with essential life skills such as basic financial budgeting, general hygiene, communication skills, substance abuse prevention and sexual health.

“We have recently formed a partnership with the Colin Eglin of the Sea Point Library to offer our clients basic computer skills training including creating a CV, sending emails and job searching on the internet.“

Alexander said they also had social workers that assisted with family related challenges and also monitored their progress towards independent living.

He said Project Hope was recently identified by the Public Employment Programme of national government through Khulisa Social Solutions as a beneficiary.

Silumko Qoyise praised the NPO saying it restored his dignity and put a shelter over his head.

He lived in the streets since 2012 when he lost his job and only joined the project in the beginning of the year.

He's now renting a room in Philippi and travels daily to perform his duty at Sea Point.

Michael Manasa from Belgravia said since he was introduced to the programme in December last year his life changed for the better and can now supports his children. He lives in a shelter in Bellville.

Mayco member for community services and health Patricia van der Ross, applauded the NPO for their role in reducing homelessness.

“The City appreciates all efforts by NPO’s and communities to address this phenomenon as it cannot address the matter alone.

“To this end we have supported several NPO’s via our Grant in Aid funding processes in the past while.

“The City of Cape Town conducted a city-wide prevalence study of people living on the street in 2018.

“This study produced a head count of people living on the street which totalled 6 175.

“According to the study, the largest concentration of people living on the street are found in Cape Town CBD, Bellville and Mitchells Plain.

“An updated enumeration has not been done and we await the Census SA data,” added Van der Ross.