City’s solution for drug addicted youth
City moves to rehabilitate drug addicted youths.
WHILE Community Policing Forums believe that drug addicted youth, forcibly removed from Whoonga Park in the city centre, have moved north, the city has embarked on a campaign to clean up the entire city.
In a statement released this morning the city said that as part of the Qalakabusha Intervention Programme, the Municipality aimed to eliminate vagrancy, loitering and drug-abuse from the Albert Park area through various intervention strategies. “Over the next few days Municipal officials will visit various areas where they will interact with the people at the park and find out what their social needs are. The programme is part of the Clean My City Campaign aimed at addressing social ills that exist in the Albert Park area in order to make it safer, cleaner and more attractive,” city spokesman, Thabo Mofokeng said.
He said the more than 300 vagrants who had fled from Albert Park were found at King Dinizulu Park. “Officials established that about 61 people require identity documents, 70 are willing to be admitted to rehabilitation centers, 70 require counseling services and 38 would like to be re-united with their families. They all indicated that they would like to receive assistance with skills development. “
Mofokeng said that the city had planned a One Stop Intervention Programme that included social development, Home Affairs, academic institutions, NGOs, legal and health services .
Some of the vagrants, according to the CPF and police have now moved north and have invaded the banks of the uMgeni River, along Riverside Road. Prostitutes are known to ply their trade on Riverside Road that was also the scene of the brutal murder of Greenwood Park Police Captain, Basil Naidoo three weeks ago.
Last week the Northglen News went on a raid with Greenwood Park Police and members of the Community Policing Forum and saw vagrants and prostitutes use a disused nature trail path that is now strewn with condoms and cardboard boxes. The path runs the length of Riverside Road and extends as far as the Connaught Bridge. Brian Daish, chairman of sector four in the Greenwood Park Police region said he was concerned with vagrants living in the bush because of a number of muggings of cyclists who use the route bordering the path.
Many of the vagrants that frequented the park are youth addicted to a drug that’s been described as one of the “cruelest”, whoonga. Its made up of detergent powder, rat poison and crushed antiretroviral drugs distributed free to HIV sufferers.
