'The City keeps going to court to evict those living on the streets in public spaces.’ Picture: Leon Lestrade / Independent Newspapers.
The City of Cape Town and Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis need to explain to the ratepayers of Cape Town why it is that they are not honouring the promises they have made and keep making in court to those living on the streets.
The City keeps going to court to evict those living on the streets in public spaces.
In court and in the Mayor’s short, now well known videos addressing the issue of homelessness, both the City and Mayor keep repeating a long list of services offered and benefits for those living on the streets that decide to move to the City Safe Spaces.
Yet, it seems in most cases, these services are not easily accessed by the individuals being evicted from certain hotspots and who agree to go to the safe spaces.
The following questions have to be asked and direct answers need to be forthcoming.
1. Why have they not done away with the rule that residents at the safe spaces must leave at 7am and can only return 12 hours later at18h00?
2. Does this rule not effectively mean these individuals will potentially be found violating some of the City 's nuisance by-laws such as loitering and panhandling?
3. Was this not a condition of both the last two eviction orders granted to the City?
If memory serves me, a recent judgement referred to this rule as a human rights violation and the court suggested that the City do away with it to prevent further litigation.
4. Did the City's lawyers not in fact tell the acting judge in this particular case that the City would do away with that rule?
5. The City committed to comply but has not. Why not?
6. Why did the City & Mayor in the promo for the new Ebenezer Safe Space in Greenpoint as having facilities for couples, yet the City could not provide these facilities at Ebenezer with the previous eviction?
7. Why did the City and Mayor say that hours at the safe spaces would be adjusted for those needing to come in later because of the nature of the work some of them do in order to earn a living and yet they are still locking people out that arrive late and forcing them, male and female to sleep outside if they arrive late?
8. Why has the City taken a decision to "terminate" the stay of pensioners at the safe spaces without having a viable, specialized and sustainable alternative for these most vulnerable individuals?
9. They are effectively being forced back to living on the streets! How does the City justify this callous act?
10. Why have the City and Mayor not admitted that most of the residents they evicted just over a month ago from seven hotspots in the CBD and who decided to give the City the benefit of the doubt and agreed to move into the Ebenezer Safe Space, have subsequently moved back to the streets and are now sleeping along the back wall of the Central Police Station and that of the Magistrate's Court whilst a group of others have moved (a group of over 20) to Maitland?
11. Are the City and the Mayor prepared to allow an independent group of monitors made up of concerned City ratepayers to monitor the final eviction and accommodation of the group currently living outside the Castle of Good Hope and whose eviction was ensured by pressure having been applied by Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis on his DA colleague, Dean Macpherson (now Minister of Public Works)?
12. How can the City guarantee the rate payers of Cape Town that this eviction will be any different from all the others which have all just turned out to be displacements?
13. Is the City of Cape Town aware of the growing number of homeless people that they have previously evicted in the CBD, now living on the streets of Maitland having contributed to the number of those living on the streets of Maitland having shot up from 108 two years ago to cover 780 last month?
The Cape Town ratepayers as well as those living on the streets of Cape Town deserve and demand honest straightforward answers to these questions from the City of Cape Town and from Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
* Mesquita is a previously homeless man and founder of Outsider an organisation focused on enlightening people on homelessness and on accommodating those living on the streets in a dignified and sustainable manner.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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