Last week, the provincial and City-funded organisations that are meant to offer services to those living on the streets issued a statement that they had started “a pioneering and historic count of those living on the streets”, emphasising their use of those with lived experience to assist them with this count.
U-TURN’s Jon Hopkins further claims: “People living on the streets were asked questions about how long they’ve been homeless, what led to their situation, what services they’re using now, and what extra support they might need.
“And future counts will also cover more areas to give a fuller picture of homelessness in the city.”
Enrique Hermanus, Parow Centre of Hope manager, described the initiative as “history in the making”.
“We are solving homelessness and this right here is the first step in doing so,” he said.
I will tell you why for me this was such a tragically hysterical read. It is a perfect example of how the City, the province and their aligned NGOs would rather waste the money that the public either generously donates to these organisations or pays to the state in taxes than work with anyone that publicly criticizes the model of addressing homelessness they support and are promoting, even if that person or organisation’s suggestion is of benefit to all.
These same organisations that in their attempt to take control of the independent living accommodation model that we as SHAC (an organisation of previously homeless individuals) pioneered in 2020, virtually ruined it and set us back at least a year, are now claiming the pioneering of a count of those living on the streets in November 2024, when they and the City were invited to join hands with us when we launched “Everybody Counts Cape Town” in December 2022 during my “Homeless for Christmas” campaign. I motivated then that without accurate data, none of us could claim to be offering services that would reduce the number of individuals living on the streets. Or prevent others from joining them.
The focus of our Homeless for Christmas campaign that year and the next year was to qualify and quantify those living on the streets. The count started in December 2022 and was only completed in March this year.
Our reports and media coverage on this endeavour stated:
“Everybody Counts Cape Town is a campaign where we will not only count those living on the streets, but we will be engaging those we count to get their permission to do a four-page assessment in order to ascertain how long they had lived on the streets, how they become homeless, what their journey had been like and what services they would need to come off the streets”
It’s sad when you think that throughout our count we had not only asked but monthly as we progressed, begged the City, its field workers and some of these organisations not only to join us but to take over the count on condition that they did not avoid counting certain areas as has always been their modus operandi, and that they use our team of 10 people with lived experience of living on the streets to lead the count.
This would be the only way of achieving a credible count.
We did this because we felt with their resources and financial standing, they would manage to complete the count much quicker than we could and it would facilitate the storing and interpretation of the data.
This was done ad nauseam to no avail.
Then last week, as I was about to launch my third Homeless for Christmas campaign, I perchance came across and read what could only be described as a self-congratulatory article presented as news, of this “historic count” that would be “the start of us ending homelessness”.
Not only was their claim false but if left unchallenged, serves to strengthen the impression that the City and these organisations are sincerely working towards and showing results that would indicate they are having a significant impact on reducing the number of those living on the streets, which unfortunately, our own research shows they are not.
It is also disappointing that without any effort to determine the outcome of the extensive and intensive count we undertook, they chose to do another comparatively small count loosely based on our count.
This again shows the City and funded organisations use their status to manipulate the reality of the homeless experience to suit and justify the model of addressing homelessness that ensures them their funding.
I guess the one thing that those of us that conceptualised and undertook a count that covered every single ward in Cape Town can take from this is that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Unfortunately, however, this is yet another very poor attempt at trying to convince an ever-increasing doubting public about the significance of these organisations that have not and do not reduce the numbers of those living on the streets significantly. Especially when one compares their real successes with the total funding that these organisations receive.
Very few of their programmes have been proven to offer sustainable solutions to more than a mere handful of individuals.
I’m going to find it extremely interesting to see the results and conclusions they get to.
I find it strange that the author of this piece, Byron Lucas, wasn’t aware that the Cape Argus itself and IOL have carried a number of pieces on the Everybody Counts campaign, one as recently as October 22, three weeks prior to this “pioneering and historic” count and exactly a month prior to this entertaining read.
Unfortunately, South Africa does not have a separate and independent body that regulates and oversees NGOs and NPOs, and so very few take their mandate seriously.
If the City, the province, the national government and their funded organisations had the will to reduce homelessness, we would be seeing those results. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
* Mesquita is a previously homeless man and founder of Outsider an organisation focused on enlightening people on homelessness and on accommodating those living on the streets in a dignified and sustainable manner. He can be reached at [email protected] or 071 341 3378.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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