Dispatch from Tshwane: Pathways Out of Homelessness in South Africa's Capital City
- Stephan de Beer
- Sep 22, 2015
- 3 min read
Editor’s note: We believe stories about local progress to end homelessness can inspire and spur new thinking. To that end, we’ll occasionally share guest posts about what your colleagues in other countries are doing to tackle homelessness, with contact information to allow you to follow up with authors directly.
We are grateful to Stephan de Beer, Director of the Centre for Contextual Ministry at the University of Pretoria, for the guest post below on how government, universities, faith groups and non-profits are working together to address homelessness in Tshwane, South Africa.
Pretoria is the capital city of South Africa. It falls within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. With the fall of apartheid the face of street homelessness has changed considerably, to a younger population and to the suburbanization of homelessness beyond only central city areas.
In November of 2014 a collaborative project was launched between local government, civil society and faith-based organizations, including homeless people, as well as the academy. The purpose was to organize the first ever Tshwane Homeless Summit and to engage in a trans-disciplinary research project aimed at drafting policy and strategy for the city on addressing homelessness in an integrated and collaborative manner.
The University of Pretoria, the University of South Africa, the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality and the Tshwane Homelessness Forum worked closely together to make this happen. The Tshwane Homelessness Forum including organizations such as the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, Yeast City Housing, PEN, Echo Youth Development, Compassion Centre, Tswelopele, and homeless individuals.
On 25 and 26 May 2015, over 400 people gathered in a city centre museum to contemplate pathways out of homelessness. The gathering included officials and politicians, researchers and practitioners, business and police, but what made it significant was that 50% of the gathering consisted of homeless people themselves. Also enriching the event were partners from the Institute of Global Homelessness in Chicago, Community Solutions in New York City, the Centre for Equity in Delhi, and the Street Medicine Network out of Pittsburgh.
This event profiled street homelessness in a new way and helped to create momentum and visibility for a challenge in the City of Tshwane never before tackled collaboratively. Out of a city budget of 248 billion South African Rand, only 650,000 were available to address homelessness in 2014. This was indicative of the way in which homelessness was not addressed collectively.
Sakhe Majozi opens the Tshwane Homeless Summit with a call to action.
However, as a result of the Summit and the accompanying research process a review of the Policy on Homelessness and a bold new strategy to facilitate pathways out of homelessness are recommended. There are signs the city will approve this strategy, which would ensure a broad and evidence-based approach to address street homelessness.
Already, a comprehensive street medicine project has been implemented as a result of the Summit, seeing doctors and community health workers collaborating with street outreach workers to meet people where they are. The city's largest social housing company is overhauling its strategy to be much more intentional about creating innovative housing products for homeless people, in particular those with special needs such as more than 1,200 senior citizens.
Organizations are rethinking their own projects to ensure duplication is avoided and now areas of homeless concentration addressed. Both Universities are committing themselves institutionally and even in the form of providing bursaries for homeless people with potential to enter into formal degree studies. And in 2016 the collective plans to engage in a broad-based training and awareness project with police, security officers, public officials and the public at large, to ensure the dignity of street homeless people are protected, and that they are supported to find pathways out of homelessness, instead of dealt with abuse and indignities.
On World Homeless Day on 10 October the partnership will enter into a social contract followed by a March through the city, this time not to demand from some anonymous politician to do something for homeless people, but rather to commit ourselves collectively to work in solidarity with homeless people and organizations in the city for just and sustainable alternatives.
You can reach Stephan at Stephan.debeer@up.ac.za.
Disclaimer: The opinions, representations and statements made within this guest article are those of the author and not of the Institute of Global Homelessness as a whole.
Comments