After reading the article, George Lea squatters moved on, Margot van Ryneveld, a Hurlingham Manor resident and principal of a Parkmore primary school felt compelled to express her views.
Van Ryneveld writes:
While we all need to be sensitive to the plight of the homeless we also need to be realistic.
A public park is not a space designed to accommodate a growing community of desperate, homeless people. They all need to be assisted by the relevant State and municipal structures but we also need to consider the wider ramifications of this ever-increasing community of squatters.
The wider community is at risk on so many levels.
Read: A problem bigger than just George Lea
As the immediate neighbours to George Lea Park, we are able to comment with a perspective that needs to be closely considered by all. We have had our pre-school property broken into over the past few years and we live under constant threat as the non-working vagrants watch our every move. We have had to electrify the entire perimeter at great expense.
One of our staff was raped on our property on a Sunday afternoon and no one has ever been arrested for this violent crime. Other staff have been threatened at knifepoint as they arrive at or leave their place of work. We have had a person hijacked right at the school gate.
Read: George Lea Park dwellers
As recently as this week, the squatters have become very aggressive towards rival residents in the park and they have hurled rocks and stones at one another. We had to evacuate pupils from the park as we feared for their safety. The illegal residents have made fires right against our school wall and when we ask them to please put out the fires they swear at us and threaten our staff.
Shacks have been built right against our school wall. Some vagrants urinate and defecate against our wall every single day and this poses a severe health risk to the community.
We, the Sandton community, all need to appeal to the appropriate State and regional structures that are responsible for homeless people to intervene and create a workable plan to get them housed as soon as possible.
Read more:
George Lea Park becomes a dumping ground
