The review will include multiple stakeholder consultations, led by two facilitators from the NGO sector.
The City of Cape Town will work with partners to help guide a broad stakeholder consultation process in the review of its Street People Policy, which has been in place since 2013.
While local governments do not have a constitutional mandate over welfare or homelessness specifically, the City drives a range of initiatives to assist street people and the organisations who care for them. We further work with provincial and national Social Development departments on issues such as expanding Safe Spaces and shelters.
The multiple complexities of homelessness, policy challenges and changing contexts occasioned by COVID-19, make this an opportune moment for the City to review its Street People Policy. Now is the time to introduce a renewed socially sensitive and flexible approach that will see the development of a well-informed, caring and right-based strategy to address the plight of those who sleep on the streets.
To ensure that the process includes as many voices as possible, including those sleeping on the streets around the city, the Community Services and Health Directorate will support this early stakeholder consultation to help inform the new draft strategy.
Facilitators will be tasked with engaging a broad range of cross-sectoral stakeholders including, but not limited to the following groups, through a series of dialogues over the coming months:
- Street People Forum organisations
- Shelter Forum organisations
- Community Improvement Districts
- People who sleep on the streets across the metropole
‘It is imperative that any future draft strategy be not only academically sound, but also includes the perspectives of interested and affected parties in the street people sector, as well as the street people themselves. This early stakeholder engagement shows the City’s commitment to finding lasting solutions to the very complex issue of homelessness. We are committed to civic participation with the people of Cape Town to design caring solutions to support those who sleep on our city’s streets,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Zahid Badroodien.
The City will work with two facilitators in conducting the stakeholder consultation processes:
- Melene Rossouw is a specialist in Public and Constitutional Law with a specific focus on Public Participation, and the founder of Women Lead Movement, which aims to educate, empower and inspire women to lead social change in their communities through Human Rights and Leadership training curricula; and
- Lorenzo Davids, the CEO of the Community Chest and a social development leader who has worked for decades to tackle the root causes of poverty and to improve the lives of vulnerable people.
The City will invite multiple stakeholders from across the homeless sector, development sectors as well as the public at large to submit written or oral submissions for inclusion into the strategy recommendations.
The consultative process is expected to be completed by 10 October 2020 on World Homeless Day.
The information gathered will be considered when drafting new strategies to deal with urban homelessness.
In the interim, the City will continue to assist street people in terms of the existing policy, through:
- Ongoing support facilitated by the Street People Unit within the Social Development and Early Childhood Development Department
- Access to its Safe Spaces which are run by independent operators
- Financial and other support to existing shelters
- Plans to further expand existing shelter spaces
‘The City understands that it has a responsibility to promote opportunities for inclusive dialogues when important strategies and policies are developed that affect all communities and more especially our vulnerable residents. We are confident that this process, led by Melene Rossouw and Lorenzo Davids, will yield insightful and relevant considerations that will allow the City to adopt world class, rights-based best practices in its approach to working with and supporting people who sleep on the street,’ added Councillor Badroodien.