'Get these people off the streets’

Rampant vagrancy across Table View and Milnerton poses a growing health hazard, say residents who have renewed calls for a homeless shelter in the area.

They have been spurred on by the City’s opening of a 40-bed Safe Space shelter in Durbanville earlier this month. And there is already a 220-bed Safe Space shelter in Bellville.

At the opening of the Durbanville shelter, mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the City was spending more than R220million over three years to expand and run the Safe Spaces, which offered social programmes to reintegrate street people into society and reunite them with their families.

Between Bellville and the Cape Town CBD, there were about 700 Safe Space beds, and a 300-bed Safe Space was set to open in Green Point in the coming months, he said.

This has residents in Milnerton and Table View asking what plans the City has to get the homeless off the streets in their neighbourhoods.

Blouberg resident Tanya Gordon said the mushrooming shacks in the area were both an eyesore and a health hazard.

“We don’t know if these people are getting adequate health care while living on the streets. This can easily be a breeding ground for all sorts of diseases.

“The drug use from the vagrants is also at an alarming rate. It is good to hear that the City has all these plans, but this seems to be serving certain parts of the City. But we also need a shelter here in our area as soon as possible. There is enough land, especially along the R27 towards Atlantis. There is so much open space. The City needs to look into this.”

Mandisa Banjwa, from the City’s social development directorate, told a sub-council meeting last year that the department was investigating using an abandoned building in Winning Way near Dunoon as a homeless shelter (“Call for homeless shelter in Milnerton, Table View,” Tabletalk, May 24, 2023), but the City did not respond by deadline to Tabletalk’s request for an update on this plan.

In Summer Greens, residents have called for squatters’ shacks in the neighbourhood to be removed.

“As you drive or walk into the community, it is a mess. You will see two shack structures built on either side of the road as you come in. It is a disgusting sight to see,” said resident Gary Botha.

“Some vagrants are living on the bridge, and they even relieve themselves there. First of all, it’s very unhealthy for residents and the vagrants themselves. I’ve also noticed that one of the vagrants is a pregnant woman. The City needs to intervene and get these people off the streets.”

Mayoral committee member for community services and health Patricia van der Ross said that the City was helping around 3 500 people a year through shelter placements or referrals to social services to get off the streets sustainably.

“This includes 2 246 shelter placements, 112 family reunifications and reintegrations, 1 124 referrals to social services, and over 880 short-term contractual job opportunities via the Expanded Public Works Programme,” she said, adding that a substance-abuse programme used by the City had an 83% success rate.