Cape Town - The city’s homeless have threatened to invade Cape Town civic centre and sleep there if their demands to be recognised as residents of the city, and to be treated with dignity and respect, are not attended to.
During a march, which saw about 100 homeless marching to the city’s headquarters on Monday, protesters called on mayor Patricia de Lille to attend to their basic needs, including their displacement and poor living conditions.
Among the people who attended the march was Dean Ramjoomia, 54, who organised the protest.
Addressing the gathering, Ramjoomia said all homeless people wanted was to be treated like “normal people and be treated with dignity and respect”.
“These people’s rights have been violated for many years and it’s intolerable. It’s a shame that the city fails to recognise all the
suffering these people go through, including braving extreme weather conditions.
“These people spend their days and nights in the streets and the city does nothing about that. With all due respect and without fighting, we want them to treat the homeless with respect and dignity. They have rights just like everyone else,” he said.
Ramjoomia threatened mayoral manager Wilfred Solomons-Johannes that the homeless would sleep there if De Lille did not respond to their demands.
But Solomons-Johannes said the mayor’s office had not received any document with the demands of the
homeless. He said all the office received was an e-mail stating that they wanted to hand over a petition to the mayor, without going into detail of their demands.
“That’s why I’m here. I don’t understand why they are approaching us like this because we only received that e-mail. We are not aware of their demands list because they didn’t even elaborate in the e-mail.”
Solomons-Johannes said the city’s Social Development Unit had done an assessment and established there were 7 000 homeless people. About 4 300 lived on the streets.
suffering these people go through, including braving extreme weather conditions.
“These people spend their days and nights in the streets and the city does nothing about that. With all due respect and without fighting, we want them to treat the homeless with respect and dignity. They have rights just like everyone else,” he said.
Ramjoomia threatened mayoral manager Wilfred Solomons-Johannes that the homeless would sleep there if De Lille did not respond to their demands.
But Solomons-Johannes said the mayor’s office had not received any document with the demands of thehomeless. He said all the office received was an e-mail stating that they wanted to hand over a petition to the mayor, without going into detail of their demands.
“That’s why I’m here. I don’t understand why they are approaching us like this because we only received that e-mail. We are not aware of their demands list because they didn’t even elaborate in the e-mail.â?
Solomons-Johannes said the city’s Social Development Unit had done an assessment and established there were 7 000 homeless people. About 4 300 lived on the streets.
Cape Argus