Category Archives: Bronwynne Jooste

Cape Argus: Services plan for backyard dwellers

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http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/services-plan-for-backyard-dwellers-1.1132867

Services plan for backyard dwellers

BRONWYNNE JOOSTE and CLAYTON BARNES

Staff Writers

THE CITY of Cape Town’s plan to provide basic services to backyard residents has been met with mixed reaction.

Mayor Patricia de Lille launched the Backyard Essential Services Improvement Programme yesterday.

The pilot stage will start in Factreton next month and entails installing toilets and running water in structures in backyards.

Electricity would also be provided, and backyard residents would get their own wheelie bins. Other areas in the pilot phase are Hanover Park and Langa.

At this stage, services can only be provided to backyard residents living on council-owned land, said De Lille.

Cape Town was the first city in South Africa to launch such a project, she saidf.

”It is a first in the history of South Africa and the first in the chapter of Cape Town.”

But some backyarders were sceptical.

Adiel Bassier, from Cape Metro Backyarders Association in Factreton, questioned how logistically possible it would be to provide the services.

Laylah Ryklief, from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Grassy Park, said the city did not consult backyard residents.

“They already made their own plans. They are saying this is what we are doing and if you don’t like it, just leave it.”

De Lille said no resident would be forced to agree to the plan. Mholbo Gunguluzi, from the Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers, said the plan showed residents they would never receive formal housing.

“You are going back to site and service. Instead of just telling us that we as backyarders are going to die before we see houses,” Gunguluzi told De Lille.

But Melanie Manuel, from Manenberg, said “backyarders’ prayers had been answered”.

“We realised a long time ago, we were going wait for houses. We are actually making ourselves comfortable. Today is the first time the city sits with us and tells us not to hide.”

Norman Grovers, from Scottsdene, said he had been a backyard resident for 18 years .

“Only a backyarder will understand how it is to live in my current condition …I really welcome the improvement.”

The ANC welcomed De Lille’s vision, but questioned the logistics of the plan. Xolani Sotashe, ANC chief whip in the council, said claims that the plan was the first of its kind in the country, were not true.

He said a similar initiative had already been launched in Soweto.

Sotashe also questioned whether the city’s “ageing” infrastructure would be able to handle the extra load.

“The sewage infrastructure is already not coping. We experience sewage spills across the city and now De Lille wants to expand.”

Meanwhile, shack dwellers’ association Abahlali baseMjondolo criticised De Lille for changing the venue of the meeting, accusing her of running away from the city’s poorest citizens.

The group planned a protest outside the O R Tambo hall in Mew Way, Khayelitsha, yesterday where De Lille was scheduled to meet with representatives of backyarders’ organisations. De Lille changed the venue to the city council at the eleventh hour, leaving protesters, many of whom had travelled from Elsies River and Kraaifontein, furious.

Abahlali baseMjondolo spokesman Mzonke Poni said De Lille must have got wind of the planned protest and “quickly changed the venue”. Abahlali was invited, but planned to boycott the gathering as the city made allowances for only three representatives per organisation to attend.

“To invite three people per organisation undermines the right of ordinary people to speak for themselves and find solutions to the problems,” said Poni. “De Lille should be ashamed of herself for running away from the poorest of the poor. It is an insult.”

Some 100 backyarders from Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Elsies River, Delft and Kraaifontein gathered outside the Abahlali offices during lunchtime yesterday before marching to the O R Tambo Hall, where the meeting was scheduled to have taken place at 2pm.

Slu Mzimkulu, chairman of the Mandela Park backyarders’ association, said:“All we want is a meeting, where all backyarders can express themselves.”

Mitchells Plain backyarders’ association chairman Charles Adams said: “De Lille has disrespected us.”

Solly Malatsi, De Lille’s spokesman, said the city had “become aware of possible disruptions” and the city was not willing to risk postponing such an important meeting.

All organisations who had confirmed attendance were notified of the change as soon as possible, he said.

bronwynne.jooste@inl.co.za

clayton.barnes@inl.co.za

Cape Argus: Neighbours’ loos for hire

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http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=&art_id=vn20100729132844354C241597

Neighbours’ loos for hire

By Natasha Prince and Bronwynne Jooste
Staff Reporters

Some Khayelitsha residents have to pay up to R10 each time they want to use the toilets at their neighbours’ homes because they don’t have their own ablution facilities.

Residents in QQ Section in Site B, who live in shacks, fork out between 50c and R10 to their neighbours who live in formal houses.

In another section of the city’s sprawling township, Site C, residents have to relieve themselves on a stretch of grass in full view of passing cars on the N2.

There are toilets nearby in Site C, but some of these are locked by individual residents who hold the keys, while others are broken, damaged or overflowing with human waste.

Using the stretch of grass as a toilet is dangerous: residents say that they are mugged as they walk to the area. One man was stabbed in the face and robbed of his cellphone earlier this year.

When the Cape Argus visited the area this week, human faeces littered the grassy area and the stench was overpowering.

It is not only adults who use the field as a toilet. Parents fear that their children are risking their lives.

Residents who use the area regularly said they had few options because the closest toilets were too far from their homes.

Some said they walked to a neighbouring area in Site C to use toilets provided by the City of Cape Town.

Thokoza Thulumani, who accompanied her two young daughters when they needed to use the grassy patch, said she “did not feel right” about using the field.

“Sometimes these little children want to run into the street (the N2); it’s not safe for them,” she said.

Mzimasi Kese, 31, said “having to go” in the open made him “feel bad”.

“I don’t feel right because so many people driving past in their cars can see you going.”

Kese said sometimes people brought toilet paper while others used newspaper which they softened by rubbing.

There are 12 concrete flush toilets in Site C.

About six of these are locked and others have been vandalised or are blocked and have plumbing defects.

Nomfusi Jezile, who uses these toilets, said the keys to the locked toilets were kept by some residents and could be obtained when requested.

“It’s better when they keep the keys because the toilets are cleaner and the children can’t play in them,” she said.

Ward councillor Nontsomi Billie said the city had the toilets for the area, but that there was no land on which to erect them.

She said some people in the area used the portable toilet system.

“If the toilets are not enough, they (the residents) should tell the street committee members who report it to me and I contact the city and processes are put in place,” she said.

Cape Argus: Cops arrest scores of homeless people

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http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=2934&art_id=vn20100520114128366C994003&singlepage=1

Cops arrest scores of homeless people

By BRONWYNNE JOOSTE and LYNNETTE JOHNS Staff Reporters

Police have arrested hundreds of homeless people over the past five months in what they and city officials have described as a crackdown on “repeat offenders”.

But homeless people say police are harrassing them because they want them off the streets ahead of the World Cup.

The City of Cape Town and police have denied the claim.

‘They don’t want the people from overseas to see us and make South Africa look bad.’

Police spokesman Captain Ezra October confirmed the arrest yesterday of 41 homeless people.

The city unveiled its Winter Readiness Plan for Street People this month, saying it wanted to reunite street people with their families.
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Apart from issuing thousands of blankets, razors, soap, blankets and even toothpaste, the city also promised to create temporary jobs paying R40 a shift.

The city identified “high-risk areas” to be targeted for this year’s campaign, including Green Point, the Grand Parade, Cape Town Station, Long Street, the Company’s Garden, Adderley Street, Buitenkant Street and Gardens Centre. With police assistance, the city would clamp down on antisocial behaviour such as begging, harassing people, doing washing in public, drunken behaviour and skarreling (hustling). The budget allocation for the campaign was increased from R300 000 last year to R500 000 this year.

October said that the police had been involved in an “intelligence driven operation” to arrest “known criminals” in the city over the past five months.

The 41 people arrested – who sleep under the Culemborg bridge, in parks and alleyways in the CBD – have been labelled by the police as “repeat offenders”.

October could not give a figure for how many people had been arrested since January, but said it was not unusual to make so many arrests in one day.

He said the suspects faced charges of theft out of motor vehicles and robbery and would appear in the community court in Cape Town soon.

October said the arrested people, aged between 18 and 41, were not “real” street people, even though he conceded that they returned to the streets after being released.

And it was precisely because they were returning that the police had the right to use legislation to force them to leave, he said.

Yesterday homeless people spoke of what they claimed was ongoing harassment by the police in the run-up to the World Cup.

Last year, a city pilot project under its Housing Allocation Policy saw the relocation of about 80 families from Sea Point to a temporary relocation area in Blikkiesdorp, near Delft.

Many were promised jobs and told their only option was to move to the area or face arrest.

One man said most of them still travelled to Sea Point every day, looking for work or to beg.

“I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been arrested there. They tell us they arrest us for ‘failure to comply’. We don’t even know what that means. They were always like this, but now with this World Cup, things became very bad for us.”

A woman said she had slept behind the Cape Town Stadium before she was moved by police.

“…They don’t want the people from overseas to see us and make South Africa look bad. Go look in Green Point and Sea Point, you will struggle to see one person sleeping on that street. People are scared.”

One man, who had been moved to Blikkiesdorp but spent last night in Green Point, said he was constantly harrassed by police.

“We are also South African citizens. They don’t want the tourists to see how people also live here in South Africa.

“Now they want to sweep clean the area, arrest us and take us to the cells. Then they took us Blikkiesdorp and they dumped us there like pigs.”

Head of the Haven Night Shelter, Hassan Khan, said he had heard of police harassing homeless people, but he said none of their field workers had received complaints from the homeless.

Grant Pascoe, mayoral committee member for social development, said the city’s winter readiness plan was an ongoing process. Last year, about 1 600 people were sheltered and fed.

“There is nothing inhumane about what the city is doing. We had beefed up our plan this year. But there is no plan to round up homeless people and dump them. It’s simply untrue.”

JP Smith, the city’s mayoral committee member for safety and security, slammed the allegations that homeless people had been forced to move to Blikkiesdorp or that they were being targeted.

“This was not a forced removal; they are free are to return to Sea Point as some of them have done. If they are unhappy there, they can leave.”

* This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on May 20, 2010