More than 30 vagrants were rounded up during a special late-night social development operation conducted on August 20 within the Florida policing precinct.
The operation was led by the Florida CPF, Florida police and the Department of Social Development, with support from JMPD, local security companies, various residents associations and block watches, AfriForum Roodepoort, and Ward 70 councillor Caleb Finn.
According to the manager for 1 Dan Street Men’s Shelter, Karabo Manaka, who led the operation on behalf of the Department of Social Development, these operations are held to get people in desperate situations off the streets, into shelters, and into programmes designed to help them back on their feet.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing limited positive results as many of these people are so desperately addicted to drugs that they are loathe to accept help,” he says.
Members of the different organisations gathered at the Florida Police Station just after 22:00 on Tuesday for the parade, where they were given a detailed brief of the evening’s operation. They then made their way to the Florida CBD, from where the teams dispersed to their designated areas.
Minutes later in Ruth Street by the pedestrian tunnel at the Florida Train Station, one of the teams came upon the first signs of drug abuse, when they confiscated some drugs and a meth pipe from four vagrants sitting around a smoky fire.
This was just the first in multiple such finds during the evening.
The Roodepoort Record joined the search and visited numerous sites where teams went to regular sleeping spots of vagrants including various spots in and around the Florida CBD, Discovery, Florida North, Florida Glen, and surrounding areas rounding up and loading vagrants as they went.
“Some of the vagrants were highly intoxicated, others were quite upset at being rudely awakened. One or two, sadly, were suffering from obvious mental disturbances,” journalist Johan Meyer said.
Outside the fire brigade along Ontdekkers Road, in the small pumphouse of the old water fountain, one man was found injured and seriously ill, wrapped in filthy blankets with a hospital tag still around his arm.
“Strewn all around him in the dilapidated pumphouse were empty alcohol bottles, discarded food wrappers, and empty pink syringes – these, we are told, are handed out at clinics and state hospitals to discourage the sharing of needles. Upon closer inspection of the pumphouse, a small plastic packet containing what appeared to be drugs was discovered.”
The vagrants were transported from their various sleeping spots to the Florida Police Station where their fingerprints and other details were checked to ascertain whether they could be connected to crime. Those who were not arrested were transported to 1 Dan Street Shelter for Men, where they were given a plate of food donated by Florida CPF and a warm place to spend the rest of the night.
According to Manaka, they were to be seen by social workers in the morning, who would assess them and try to convince them to be taken up into one of the programmes offered by the state.
Manaka says that among those taken, 17 are new to the area.
“This is worrying, because it affirms that homeless people are coming here from other areas.
“The Florida area is widely known to have cheaper, and more potent drugs. There are also various feeding schemes operating in the area, where people know they can get food.”
