Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General
29 September 2021
Today the DA-governed City of Cape Town pushed through its amendments to the “STREETS, PUBLIC PLACES AND THE PREVENTION OF NOISE NUISANCES BY-LAW”.
The by-law gives City officials, in particular law-enforcement officials far reaching powers to legitimise the unlawful victimisation of homeless people.
In addition, the amendments fail to honour a commitment made by the DA in 2019, to exempt the Athaan and ringing of church bells from the definition of “noise nuisance”. The commitment followed a public outcry over the City acting against a 100 year old Mosque in District Six.
The by-law reveals the true nature of a City government without any sense of compassion, tolerance or comprehension of Cape Town’s multicultural heritage.
It is the culmination of a bitter struggle by the City to rid the streets of homeless people through violence, intimidation and legal bullying.
Homeless people live on City streets for a variety of social and economic reasons. This is not just a Cape Town thing; it is a global phenomenon. Modern cities manage the challenge by providing sufficient shelters, accommodation and social services interventions. But not Cape Town.
In Cape Town, there aren’t enough shelter beds, and there is no emphasis on social assistance. Here, law-enforcement officials conduct “raids” and “operations” to confiscate the meagre possessions of homeless people, allegedly including their identity documents, and chase them out of town.
The by-law legalises this behaviour. It formally gives the City the power to arrest homeless persons, impound their personal effects, and direct them to “leave and remain out of a public place.” It doesn’t say where they should go.
This is an absurd appropriation of a power, reminiscent of the apartheid Separate Amenities and Group Areas Acts. A public place is by its very definition a place that any person can be in.
The appropriate approach to addressing homelessness begins with compassion and accommodation.
To assist those who reach the point of living on the street, we must provide social services while accommodating them in a transitional housing space. The starting point is to assign under-used public buildings, or acquire buildings, for that purpose.
The City can afford to do this. It spent R56 million on a six week concentration camp jamboree in Strandfontein at the beginning of the Covid lockdown last year. That money could have been invested in accommodation and services.
The City’s failure to honour its commitment to exempt the Muslim Call to Prayer and church bells from the definition of noise nuisance is tone-deaf and disgraceful.
Provincial regulations provide for noise exemptions, but the City doesn’t want the “noise” of the Athaan interfering with its gentrification agenda.
A GOOD-led City will consign the new by-law to the trash-heap where it belongs.
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