Homeless man turns bus stop into his home
"It is not a healthy “area” for children to be standing around waiting for the bus / taxi which stops right outside his “home”.
MORNINGSIDE resident, Cheryl McGladdery, is appealing for help for a homeless man whom she believes may suffer from epilepsy and who has made a bus shelter outside Morningside Primary School in Trematon Drive, his makeshift home.
The Berea Mail visited the man and found him wearing no pants and sitting in a dirty blanket. The the area around him was strewn with papers, old food and bottles.
According to McGladdery the man just sits all day. She said residents had never seen him walking around albeit sometimes he is on the other side of the bus stop.
ALSO READ: New home for Baba Zondi
“What concerns me is that I think he is epileptic, as we see him quite often hitting his head on the side of the bus stop or on the pavement, which I am sure is causing him injury as he is quite violent when doing this. I see some people drop off food and drinks for him, but he seems to ignore them and does not take it. I have tried on numerous occasions but he won’t take it and if I put it down for him to have at a later stage, he pushes it away with his hand so I have stopped doing so,” she said.
Ward councillor Martin Meyer said the general advice to residents was not to give money to vagrants and beggars directly.
“Best is to rather donate to NGOs like I Care. It is a big concern that there is no government run shelter for people in the city to go to. The municipality has been promising such a facility for a long time but it has not yet got off the ground. It is a complex social problem and a new and fresh approach is needed to deal with this matter,” he said.
McGladdery said the shelter was not a healthy area for children to be standing around waiting for the bus or taxi which stops right outside the homeless man’s home.
“How can we help this man and move him to a place of safety or mental facility where he will get the help he needs? He cannot live like this on the streets, he has been here for over four months now and it is not good for him or anyone else,” she said.
Do you want to receive news alerts via WhatsApp? Send us a WhatsApp message (not an sms) with your name and surname to 060 532 5535.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Berea Mail WhatsApp number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts
