As a follow-up to my column (Looking back: 'Our House’ is again back to square one - Part 3), about Our House and its uncertain future, Community Chest responded: “This model was always a temporary intervention in order to allow residents time to become employed, independent and able to transition to more secure livelihoods.
“As Mr Mesquita notes, many residents achieved success. However, Our House has become financially unsustainable… and it was agreed that Mr Mesquita would seek to ensure the longevity and sustainability of the initiative.”
What Community Chest do not say in their response is that in January, it agreed to support my venture going forward by becoming rent funder for Our House on a month-to-month basis while the owner sought to sell the house, and that should the house be sold, the owner would give them with three months' notice, and they in turn give Our House three months' notice.
The owner sold the house and on April 30, Community Chest served me a month’s notice.
I will not pre-empt June 1, as Community Chest has finally agreed to meet this coming week to discuss concerns I raised in March when I became aware that notice had been discussed between Community Chest and the owner without my knowledge.
This, despite the fact that it was I who brought Community Chest and the owner together in January, to finalise an agreement regarding the rent following Community Chest’s commitment to me to remain a rent funder for the project despite no longer funding the project.
It became my sole responsibility to collect rental from the residents and solicit donations in order for me to be able to cover all other running costs for Our House.
Despite, The Rehoming Collective, which I had established late last year as a response to Community Chest’s decision to stop funding the project, and also to champion and lead the drive to end chronic homelessness in Cape Town, having supported me in my quest to keep Our House going, I will only hand over Our House to The Rehoming Collective once this discussion about the manner in which Community Chest has ended their responsibility as rent funder to Our House is finalised.
I have since December, been speaking to Dr Zahid Badroodien (Mayco member for Health and Community Services) about the possibility of the City providing a new venue for Our House as the first project to be taken on by The Rehoming Collective, as well as the Homeless Hub that the Rehoming Collective is about to launch.
The Homeless Hub is a service centre that will offer a multitude of referral services to the homeless, both directly in the form of a walk-in hub as well as online on our website and social media pages.
Our House has a well-documented year’s history of successes as an independent living space for homeless people.
The City is well aware of the services being offered at Our House and what we envisage offering in future through The Rehoming Collective.
The whole purpose of the Rehoming Collective is to, with the City, identify premises that can be used to accommodate the homeless, and at the same time offer upliftment and employment assistance through the Anchored Lives programme and also offer Stand’s Drug Use and Misuse programme to all residents of these accommodation venues.
Dr Badrodien is aware of the notice served on us and explained to me this past week that the one property that he has been discussing with me since January this year as a possible new venue for Our House, Anchored Lives and the Homeless Hub is currently subject to a legal process.
I however refuse to believe that the city cannot identify one other property in the CBD that could be made available for a project that has proven its worth and is associated to an organisation that I had registered, and that includes some of the most prominent names in the City and is affiliated with the provision of services to the homeless, and whose mission it is to end homelessness in the City of Cape Town with dignity.
I lament the manner in which Community Chest chose to serve notice as Our House’s rent funder, a manner foreign to all the discussions we have held before, and knowing full well that we are in a process of trying to secure other premises, and that we initially had no choice but to accept the premises that they had chosen for the project (despite it not having been sustainable for any NPC – even one that asks its working residents to pay towards the running costs of the house).
This is, after all, the reason Community Chest chose to stop sponsoring the project after the initial six months during which the project was viable for them due to its marketing potential.
I am hoping that this week’s meeting will reflect the lack of consideration that they have shown us since December last year.
The City of Cape Town and Community Chest, both with a vested interest in the well-being of homeless people and both advocating for the homing of the homeless, potentially contributing to and standing by, as the residents of a successful model in rehoming the homeless with dignity becomes another wasted opportunity and adding to the number of those already living on the streets.
Surprised? Shocked? Disappointed? Angry? So am I!
* Carlos Mesquita and a handful of others formed HAC (the Homeless Action Committee) that lobbies for the rights of the homeless. He also manages Our House in Oranjezicht, which is powered by the Community Chest.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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