SA, like many nations, has long viewed homelessness as an inevitable fact of modern life, but the coronavirus pandemic is offering an unexpected chance to give those on the streets a roof over their heads.
Thousands are being housed in sports stadiums, schools and other locked-down public spaces, partly to try to stop them contracting or spreading Covid-19, and the government says it wants to ensure they don’t slip back though the cracks once the outbreak ends.
Yet not everyone thinks they will do better in the shelters the state has provided, with some saying what they are being offered is scarcely better than sleeping rough and others concerned the makeshift accommodation could become breeding grounds for infection.
Tsepang Motsepe, however, saw an opportunity to kick the heroin habit that made him homeless a decade ago. He abandoned his law studies when his sponsor failed to pay the university bill, then swiftly found that heroin “stabilises your emotions”.
To feed his addiction, he was breaking into parked cars and sometimes robbing them. For food, “the dustbins were there,” he said outside a set of communal tents at the Lyttelton sports ground near Pretoria.
Many of his friends have died from overdoses, HIV/Aids, or tuberculosis (TB), but Motsepe is now on state-provided methadone, a common heroin substitute. “I see there are aspects of my life I need to change. I want to go back to my studies.”
He is one of about 15,000 people the department of social development is housing in Gauteng. Up to 2,000 more are in shelters in Cape Town.
All have been screened for the coronavirus, authorities said, and Gauteng spokesperson Thabiso Hlongwane said the province is rolling out testing.
Meanwhile, beds in shelters are being kept 1m apart and hundreds of bottles of hand sanitiser has been provided.
Jo Barnes, an epidemiologist at Stellenbosch University, warned that, if it takes hold, the coronavirus would “spread like wildfire” through any facilities that are not well managed.
Hlongwane said the aim is to keep the homeless off the streets once the epidemic ends. “Beyond the lockdown, the programme will continue. Social workers are on board ... to reunite them with their families,” he said.
Some may leave the programme well before then. At Strandfontein sports ground in Cape Town, where huge, white marquee tents house about 1,500, some complained last week of cramped conditions and inadequate food.
Reuters saw police officers break up a protest as some inside tried to uproot the metal fencing, shouting — somewhat ironically — “We want to go home!”
“If I have a chance I will run away from this place,” said Marco Brown, one of the people at the camp who used to bivouac under a bridge, adding that he had received nothing to eat by 3pm.
The Cape Town council said that, after some “initial challenges”, services at Strandfontein are improving by the day. But some homeless in the city want nothing to do with the shelters. “There are too many people inside. It’s gonna be easy to get sick [there],” said Joseph, sleeping rough in the city park.
Reuters
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