City in crisis, Durban needs a plan – councillor
Councillor Martin Meyer said the city had to come up with a way to deal with homeless in Durban.
THE city must put proper plans in place to deal with whoonga and vagrant crisis.
This is the opinion of councillor Martin Meyer, deputy caucus leader of the DA.
Meyer said he felt it was concerning that the eThekwini Municipality continued to ignore the true depth of the whoonga and vagrant crisis besieging the city by failing to put proper plans in place to adequately deal with this matter.
“While the DA agrees that King Dinizulu Park had to be cleared of vagrants and whoonga addicts so it could be cleaned, the city needs to be realistic and put sustainable alternatives in place for the homeless and addicts living in this park as well as other parks in and around the city.
What merely happens is that those removed by the city simply migrate to other public open spaces and the vicious cycle continues; resulting in these areas becoming unsafe for residents to use,” he said.
Due to the magnitude of this crisis, Meyer said he was calling on co-operation between the provincial government and the city in the setting up of temporary rehabilitation centres while long-term solutions were thrashed out.
Meyer said The Community and Emergency Services Committee should also urgently investigate the setting up of shelters for the homeless which should not only provide those in need with safe places to sleep, but should also include social services and skills development assistance to help them to free themselves from the vicious circle of poverty and addiction they are caught up in.
“It is shocking that the city’s Metro Police have been implicated in the forced dumping of addicts and the homeless on the South Coast.
“While the DA will continue to call for the safeguarding of city parks and roads and the limiting of vagrancy in these areas, it cannot be done at the cost of the rights of these people.
“The Metro Police are becoming a liability by continuously breaking the law, violating people’s rights and harming eThekwini’s relationship with neighbouring towns by dumping addicts and vagrants there.
“I will be engaging with city manager Sbu Sithole on all these matters as we cannot continue like this and then expect residents and visitors to take pride in Durban,” he said.
Meyer said he would continue to engage with various role-players in order to find additional solutions to these matters in conjunction with ward 33 councilor Nicole Graham and ward 32 PR councilor Halalisani Ndlovu.
