STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER OF WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT & SECRETARY GENERAL
27 May 2021
Councillor JP Smith wants residents of Cape Town to share with him their hatred, fears and prejudices about homeless people.
He is asking residents to, “please help with the reporting of the cases that take over your neighbourhoods”.
“This is what happened when I saw them…,” a proforma complaint form sent to residents on Smith’s behalf reads.
The form suggests residents fill in the gap with their choice of, “urinating in public road, robbing people, increase in crime, effect on customers, damage caused to infrastructure and other examples of the result of the occupation of the area etc (sic)”.
The City has a shocking record of mismanaging homelessness.
Rather than seeking to develop sustainable management solutions for the phenomenon, as progressive cities around the world do, Cape Town is vindictive and violent, confiscating homeless people’s meagre possessions, bullying them – and criminalising their being in public spaces.
The reason Smith wants residents to help him by describing their distaste for homeless people is because the city is facing a court challenge to the constitutionality of its Streets, Public Places and the Prevention of Noise Nuisances By-Law.
This is the law which the City has been using to fine homeless people for being in a public space.
The style and language of Smith’s latest communication to residents is outrageous. It is language of fascism and vigilantism that deliberately targets an easily identifiable group of people.
Smith, who has accumulated massive law enforcement resources under his command as the Cape Town councillor responsible for safety, must be stopped from becoming a law unto himself.
I have approached the SA Human Rights Commission to reign him in.
Ends…