Stakeholders meet to address the city’s homeless problem
One of the solutions is to draw up a clear action plan and meet again in October of this year to give feedback.
After StatsSA confirmed that Tshwane has the largest homeless population nationwide, the metro and relevant stakeholders recently hosted an indaba at Tshwane House to work out solutions.
The indaba, which took place on July 11, was attended by non-profit organisation sector partners who manage shelters that care for vulnerable populations, including the homeless among others.
Metro officials from various departments including community and social development, health, human settlements and safety and security, were also in attendance.
The theme of the indaba was towards accelerating implementation of the street homelessness policy – pathways out of homelessness.
“The indaba was held because of the city’s concerns with the homelessness crisis. The city has a Homelessness Policy, but its implementation has not always been smooth,” said Tshwane’s Deputy Mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya
Moya said the event was to help give the policy “strength and teeth for implementation”. Some of the objectives of the indaba included:
– providing the status quo on the implementation of the Homelessness Policy by Tshwane,
– coming up with long-term collective solutions to speed up the implementation of the policy, and
– creating a relevant platform for stakeholder engagement to meet and exchange best practices.
The following resolutions were adopted as a result of the indaba:
– A report will be compiled and submitted to the Mayoral Committee about challenges non-profit organisations deal with in the sector, more especially dealing with city departments.
– A clear action plan will be drafted with tangible deliverables emanating from the indaba.
– A similar meeting of non-profit organisations will convene again in October 2024 on World Homeless Day for a feedback session on deliverables.
Project co-ordinator and deputy chair of the Tshwane Homeless Forum, Sam Moimane said the engagement was fruitful as several government entities were available to hear out the struggles the non-profit sector encounters while conducting their work in the city.
“We hope that we will pave a better way for the homeless going forward and we are just so happy that we have a political head that can address our issues,” Moimane said about Moya.
“[In] our first sitting with Mayor Cilliers Brink, he promised that he’d escalate our issues forward and then he delegated those issues to the Deputy Mayor who is also the MMC for Social Development,” Moimane said.
“I can tell you we are receiving joy so far. She has the best interests at heart of those who are vulnerable, she’s made calls for private businesses to come on board and assist the food bank and the NGOs that are not funded so they can support social cohesion,” Moimane said.
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