The offer of shelter promotes dignity and well-being for the ‘homeless’, and sustainable solutions for public places
18 October 2021
The City has filed its answering affidavit with the Western Cape High Court disputing that its by-laws infringe on constitutional rights.
The Streets By-law, which was recently updated, states that authorised City officials must offer shelter and social assistance before enforcing the law against sleeping in public places.
While the By-law prohibits certain conduct, its enforcement measures are used as a means of last resort as it relates to sleeping or camping in public places. This is because reintegration, rehabilitation, and the offer of shelter are the key pillars of the City’s response to assisting people off the streets sustainably.
Humane legal mechanisms to shorten a person’s stay on the streets are vital to dignity, health, and well-being. Living on unsafe streets can have a grave impact, including illness, disease, higher death rates, personal safety risks, substance abuse without rehabilitation, and erratic medical treatment.
Cape Town generally prohibits the same conduct in public places as other municipalities, except the City’s by-laws uniquely enshrine the offer of shelter in law, making this a requirement before enforcement takes place.
Only once all offers of shelter and sustainable solutions are refused, does sleeping or camping overnight in a public place become an offence. This is a necessary deterrent for the sustainable management of public places.
The City’s by-laws only criminalise conduct, not human beings. There can be no reasonable expectation, nor a clear right, for anyone to live unlawfully and permanently in tents in public spaces, and to reserve it for their exclusive use while refusing all offers of social assistance and shelter.
The City received close to 30 000 complaints for the period 2019 to 2021 related to people living on the street.
Common themes include aggressive and intimidating behavior or begging, erecting of structures, open fires, public nudity or indecency, drug use, unhygienic conditions, and in the case of businesses, loss of customers.
There are serious consequences to not managing the impact of people living on the streets, including:
- Public amenities for the benefit of all will become overtaken for the exclusive use of a few
- Parks and public open spaces will become overrun by makeshift structures and no longer be available for public use
- Unchecked public consumption of drugs and alcohol, violent crime and petty crimes, intimidation, verbal abuse of residents using public amenities, littering, and unsanitary conditions
- Flight of business initiatives
- Loss in tourism and reduction in visitors to key tourist sites
- Exponential loss of revenue for the City
‘The City has a constitutional obligation to make sure that our public open spaces remain sustainable, and that while we are offering assistance to help people off the streets, our by-laws are being applied equally to all residents at the same time. Uniquely in Cape Town, it is law that enforcement of the prohibition on sleeping in public spaces is a last resort once all offers of social assistance are refused.
‘Cape Town does more than any other city to help people off the streets sustainably, with R64 million committed over the latest two financial years towards a range of social interventions. These include Safe Spaces, Grant-in-aid funding to shelters, EPWP jobs, reintegration staff, and developmental programmes. That is aside from our primary healthcare services and substance abuse treatment programme, which has an 80% success rate,’ said the City’s Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato.
Homelessness not to be confused with a housing shortage
Haven Night Shelter CEO, Hassan Khan, is offering expert testimony in support of the City’s argument that ‘homelessness’ should not be confused with a housing shortage issue. The issue is more complex, and includes people choosing not to live in their homes.
The Haven defines a ‘homeless’ person as someone who is living on the street because of a breakdown in family relations, and consequently the loss of support from the family. The drivers of ‘homelessness’ vary, and are best addressed through social work, interventions to reintegrate persons into society or reunite them with family, and drug abuse treatment, among other services.
Homeless persons do not constitute a homogenous grouping simply requiring housing, as is often mistakenly assumed.
People live on the streets for many reasons including poverty, prolonged unemployment, substance abuse, mental illness, lack of housing, to escape unbearable domestic conditions, and as a response to personal trauma such as divorce, death of a loved one or a retrenchment.
Shelter spaces are a renewable resource
Homeless shelters are a renewable resource. Each time a person successfully reintegrates or rehabilitates, their bed space opens up for a new person to accept sustainable solutions off the streets.
It is therefore a false scenario to claim a lack of shelter capacity by simply comparing shelter spaces, of which there are about 2 500 in Cape Town, to estimates of the homeless population.
The number of people seeking accommodation at night shelters or City-run Safe Spaces has consistently been lower than available capacity.
It is a fact that each day in Cape Town, there are a significant number of vacant bed spaces in shelters and Safe Spaces, and the City offers these on a daily basis.
The shelter system is a pathway off the streets, with sufficient spaces in Cape Town to help all willing homeless persons off the streets progressively, and sustainably.
The City’s most recent census of Cape Town’s ‘homeless’, found there were 2 084 people sleeping in shelters out of a total population of 6 175, a marginal increase from 4 862 counted in the 2014/15 census.
The City wishes to categorically state that the often quoted figure of 14 000 ‘homeless’ in Cape Town is incorrect, and not based on any credible data.
The NPOs citing this figure do not have their own data, and instead relied on the City’s 2018/19 census data, but did not follow credible methodology to arrive at their estimate. The City is preparing a new census, which will yield credible data.
Cape Town leads SA on caring for the homeless
Cape Town is SA’s leading metro for social development assistance to help people off the streets. The key pillars of the City’s programme are reintegration, rehabilitation, and an offer of shelter while these interventions are under way.
Reintegration occurs through measures such as employment, skills development, reunification with family, and developing functional lives within society.
Rehabilitation includes medical treatment, substance abuse programmes, mental illness support, and therapy that promotes a stable, healthy, functional, and self-sufficient lifestyle.
These interventions include the offer of shelter at one of the City’s NGO partners, or at one of the City-run Safe Spaces.
While the national and provincial governments hold the constitutional welfare mandate and budget, the City is going above and beyond its municipal mandate to help people get off the streets sustainably. These are some of the strategies in place:
- Cape Town is SA’s only metro with a social development budget aimed at people living on the street, with R64,1 million estimated Street People Programme in 2020/21.
- A Reintegration Unit working daily to link willing individuals to shelters, reunite families where possible, and offer support to obtain ID documents, social grants, employment training, and EPWP jobs.
- 1 600 shelter placements, 1 550 EPWP work placements, 575 reunifications with family, three Safe Spaces opened with 700 total capacity, and R13,5 million provided to support shelters from 2016 – 2021.
- ‘Safe Space’ facilities opened in the CBD and Bellville with a total capacity for 700 persons under normal conditions, all offering two to three meals per day, blankets, mattresses and vanity packs on entry, substance abuse interventions, skills training, ID book assistance, and EPWP work placement.
- Annual Winter Readiness campaigns to support shelters and bolster capacity for when the worst weather arrives.
- The City’s ‘Give Dignity’ campaign encourages the public to support sustainable solutions to help people get off the streets by making responsible, impactful donations directly to shelters and NGO partners.
- Help is available for the many who end up on the streets due to drug addiction, via placement in the City’s Matrix® substance abuse programme, which has shown an 80% success rate.
Issued by Media Office, City of Cape Town, 18 October 2021
