Possible site for Muizenberg homeless shelter sparks alarm
But City of Cape Town says no decision has been taken yet
The parking lot in Sidmouth Road has been proposed as the site of the new Safe Space shelter for homeless people in Muizenberg, Cape Town. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks
A parking lot in Muizenberg has been suggested as the site of the City of Cape Town’s new Safe Space shelter. The 1,141 square metre property is located in Sidmouth Road, close to the popular Surfers’ Corner beach, restaurants and surf stores. The shelter, which will be run in partnership with welfare organisation U-turn, will have at least 60 beds.
At a meeting on 15 July, sub council 19, which includes Muizenberg, approved a proposal from the City’s property management department that the parking lot be handed over from the Safety and Security directorate to the Community, Arts and Culture directorate. The plan is to create a Safe Space, “designed to provide dignified transitional shelter and extensive social interventions aimed at helping homeless individuals move away from life on the streets”.
The transfer has also been approved by other directorates, according to City of Cape Town spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo.
In a statement, Simon Roberts, chair of the Muizenberg Improvement District (MID) said that the MID supported the shelter but was concerned about the proposed location as it could affect tourism and economic activity.
“This is the last available A-grade erf that can be developed to enhance our area” he said. He said the MID wanted a full public participation process before a location was chosen.
“The public have not been informed, educated or consulted on this,” he said.
Tyhalibongo said a final decision had not yet been taken.
He said the City noted the concern about the economic impact shelters could have but “there is a desperate need for shelters across the city, including in Muizenberg, in order to accommodate people who have taken up occupation in many of our public places, including under bridges and in the Muizenberg park”.
He said the Western Cape High Court had said shelters should be located close to where the people involved earned an income, “and this constrains the choice of locality for suitable shelter space in the city to ensure that our homeless persons are offered a suitable path out of homelessness and off the streets”.
Tyalibongo said U-turn would be entitled to apply to lease this site, and if the City considered the application, the lease would be advertised for public comment.
Letters
Dear Editor
I had a panel shop there when the scouts moved out. The committee agreed to house the homeless in the scout hall. I divided areas for them and provided food and cooking utensils and had [redacted], also homeless, do the cooking. It was a mixture of races living under the same roof and getting along with each other, being in the same situation.
But then we were forced out.
Muizenberg remembers, and some have died as a result of the cold conditions they were thrown back into. If something can be done for the homeless, I might consider forgiving those who cost us our businesses but not for throwing the homeless out.
© 2024 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.