Cape Town - As Cape Town heads towards the colder months of winter, there have been increased efforts to help keep homeless people warm and safe during the winter nights.

Mould Empower Serve (MES), a social development organisation that works towards finding sustainable solutions to poverty, and the Voortrekker Road Corridor Improvement District (VRCID) set up winter sleeping sites to protect the homeless community from sleeping outside during severe cold fronts.

Volunteers have handed out more than 200 shelterbags to the homeless, courtesy of the Sheltersuit Foundation.

The shelterbag acts as a portable bed, with built-in mattress and pillow, that can be rolled into a bag. The bag is also a safe place for the homeless community to keep their belongings.

Wilma Piek, VRCID social development manager, said the organisation aimed to create and maintain an urban environment along the Voortrekker Road Corridor that was clean, safe and sustainable.

“We provide top-up safety, cleaning and social development services, in relation to the city’s services.

“Through donations from businesses, we are able to use those levies to create pathways out of homelessness. We were approached by Sheltersuit, who pitched the idea for the Shelterbag to us, and together with MES we realised it was a way to keep the homeless warm, especially on cold nights,” she said.

Ilse Maartens, MES branch manager in Cape Town, said there was no way that they can allow people to still be living on the streets and suffering, especially in the 21st century.

MES fieldworkers and volunteers assist at the sleeping sites, registering each homeless person and distributing food and utensils as needed.

matthew.petersen@inl.co.za

Cape Argus