Pilot project to count homeless people in Cape Town
Volunteers hope the data they collect can be used to improve services
Seven people lived in this makeshift shelter under a bridge along the M3 highway in Cape Town. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks
A pilot project to count people “sleeping rough” on the streets has kicked off in parts of Cape Town.
On the evening of 13 November, about 200 volunteers from different organisations, some of whom also do not have permanent homes, conducted the survey. The organisations involved include U-turn, Streetscapes, MES, New Hope SA, the Haven, and the Voortrekker Road Corridor Improvement District.
The areas covered included Rondebosch, Newlands, Claremont, Kenilworth, Muizenberg, Fish Hoek, Simons Town, and the northern suburbs of Parow, Bellville, and Durbanville. The objective was to assess what services are needed in communities away from the city centre.
The data, which is still being collated, will be used for planning and to assess the success of current programmes.
Respondents were asked how they had ended up sleeping on the street, how long they had been homeless, and whether they had tried to access any services.
Valerie Govender, chief communications officer at U-turn, said the main reasons given for ending up on the streets were family breakdowns, addiction, and unemployment.
“There are so many powerful stories about people who just needed a second chance, people who made the wrong decisions, educated people, some who had been in high profile jobs,” she said.
In 2020, GroundUp reported on a study on the cost of homelessness in Cape Town that estimated that over 14,000 people live on the streets in the city. This followed a study by U-turn, with help from Khulisa Streetscapes and MES.
“Based on our own research and interactions with clients, we know that the number of homeless people in the city is far greater than what we’ve seen in past years,” said Govender.
They plan to do another count in six months time and include additional areas.
“There is no way we can tell if rough sleeping is getting worse or better in Cape Town without conducting regular counts,” said Jon Hopkins from U-turn.
Letters
Dear Editor
Home—a small but profoundly emotive word, vast in its resonance and transcending languages and cultures. To label individuals as "homeless" reduces their entire existence to an economic plight, often unintentionally stripping away their humanity in favor of a convenient and oversimplified narrative. This term unwittingly aligns with the globalizing right-wing agenda, deflecting blame from governments, corporations, and societal structures—the true architects of the policy failures that leave so many unhoused.
Journalists, as stewards of truth, bear a critical responsibility to clarify and contextualize these complexities for the public. Yet, distressingly—and hopefully unintentionally—the most vulnerable are often depicted as deficient, reckless, or inherently incapable. The dominant narrative of "homelessness" portrays the unhoused as victims of their own poor decisions, a view as baseless as it is pernicious. The disciplines of social science, economics, and history present a starkly different picture: lacking a home is rarely a matter of personal failing. Instead, it is the predictable outcome of deliberate policy choices—tax cuts favoring the wealthy, welfare reductions targeting the marginalized, and the absence of generational wealth, the silent legacy of systemic inequality.
Continuing to use the word "homeless" perpetuates this misleading narrative. It reinforces the rhetoric of victim-blaming, a linguistic maneuver that absolves those in power of accountability. Words shape perception, and no one should understand this better than journalists. Reporting truth is not just a professional obligation; it is a moral imperative to confront and challenge the structures that sustain injustice and inequity.
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