Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has officially opened the city’s new Safe Space shelter, which will help more homeless people get off the streets in Durbanville.
Councillor Patricia van der Ross, mayoral committee member for community services and health, attended Wednesday’s opening ceremony alongside the mayor.
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The new Durbanville Safe Space, located at the Public Transport Interchange, will add 40 beds to the area, which is supplemented by the existing 220-bed Safe Space in Bellville.
City Safe Spaces provide social programmes to help people get off the streets, reintegrate them into society, and reunite them with their families. Personal development planning and employment opportunities are available, as well as referrals to mental health, medical and substance abuse treatment.
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‘This new Durbanville Safe Space will add to the City’s ability to offer caring solutions to help people off the streets sustainably, and to keep public places open and available to all. Overall, the City is spending more than R220 million over three years to expand and operate its Safe Space transitional shelters.’
‘Accepting social assistance to get off the streets is the best choice for dignity, health, and well-being. No person has the right to reserve a public space as exclusively theirs, while indefinitely refusing all offers of shelter and social assistance,’ said Hill-Lewis.
The City will also open a new 300-bed Safe Space in Green Point in the coming months to supplement the two Safe Spaces at Culemborg in the east CBD, which currently have 510 shelter beds between them.
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The City also recently supported a 63% bed increase at the CBD’s Haven Night Shelter, expanding it from 96 to 156 beds with an R500 000 cost contribution.
During winter last year, the City enabled several NGOs to add 300 more temporary bed spaces to cope with additional shelter demand, including the deployment of 184 EPWP workers to assist NPOs.
‘The City helps 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. We are also offering our substance abuse programme, which follows the evidence-based Matrix® model. The programme has an 83% success rate for clients, addressing a key driver of why people end up on the streets,’ said Councillor van der Ross.
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Picture: City of Cape Town