GOOD Speech by Peter de Villiers,
GOOD Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament
27 July 2023
Note to editor: This speech was delivered today by GOOD’s Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, Mr Peter De Villiers.
Honourable Speaker…
Claims have been made that the reason we seem to be losing the fight against homelessness in Cape Town is the fact that we have a very active Homeless Industrial Complex in the City’s homeless sector and that everyone is benefitting from it but those living on the streets.
The latest annual report by the city on how “successfully” they are addressing homelessness seems to confirm this notion.
None of the figures provided by the city in this report can be confirmed as the city is not registered with the Provincial Department of Social Development.
This is problematic as it means there is no oversite over their Safe Spaces.
The city, in a statement by MAYCO member Patricia van der Ross, on 23 July 2023 claims to have had over 51,000 interventions with people living on the street for the year dated July 2022 to June 2023. They proudly say that they were able to assist nearly 3,500 (6.86%) of these individuals by referring them to shelters and other programs and of these they succeeded in re-integrating 112 (3,.2%).
The City’s report excludes the operational costs of Law Enforcement and Solid Waste and omits to mention that individuals have a limited period of stay at these shelters and Safe Spaces. And that once their time is up, they are evicted back onto the streets where the City’s amended by-laws have made it a crime to sleep on the streets.
The same goes for the work programs offered to those living on the streets.
These contracts also have a duration of 3 months and the city benefits by virtue of cheap labour for municipal work that needs to be carried out and the service providers benefit from staffing their organisations at bare minimum program stipend rates with no possible labour repercussions.
This analysis was done from the aforementioned media statements and it means, that the city has spent R848,000 per person who effectively left the streets.
This is the very definition of fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
And the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Media Enquiries:
Peter De Villiers, GOOD Member of Western Cape Provincial Parliament
Cell: 079 116 8957
Email: devilliers.pt@gmail.com
Samantha Jackson, GOOD Acting Media Manager
Cell: 083 550 9875
Email: media@forgood.org.za