Plans to build an additional homeless shelter in District Six have been halted.
The Western Cape Department of Social Development has abandoned the project due to community objections and budget constraints.
Instead, funds will enhance bed capacity at existing NGO-run shelters throughout the province, the Cape Argus reports.
Also read: DSD explores alternative sites for District Six homeless shelter project
Mesquita said that these facilities often act as temporary stopgaps, failing to provide sustainable support for the homeless.
‘These shelters with the so-called upliftment programmes offered, like EPWP and PEP, are all time-bound by three months. The only benefit is reaped by the City and some service providers that are supplied with cheap labour and no labour issues due to the contracts signed,’ he said.
‘There is no way it will help by adding extra beds to the existing shelters that those living on the streets have learned, through experience, are nothing but a merry-go-round on their way to nowhere,’ Mesquita said.
He said that those who are homeless return to the streets without a job every three to six months.
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Siwaphiwe Myataza-Mzantsi, a media officer at U-Turn Homeless Ministries, emphasised the urgent need for more shelters and rehabilitation programmes.
She called for a comprehensive national policy on homelessness and increased funding to effectively combat the issue.
‘We hope the government can do more by having a proper national policy on homelessness and by providing adequate budgets and resources to the Department of Social Development that reflect the scale of the problem,’ Siwaphiwe said.
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Also read:
District Six pensioners facing private eviction seek City’s intervention
Picture: District Six / Facebook