Durban- Several homeless people have been able to turn their lives around, thanks to the eThekwini Municipality’s effective programme that has seen many of the participants being introduced to life skills to help them live productive lives.
During a response to the full council yesterday to questions about the number of homeless people still in the care of the city, ANC councillor Michael Shelembe said there were about 650 still living in the city’s four shelters.
The city set up shelters during the beginning of the national lockdown last year to house the large homeless population that resided in the city streets. However, many of those that lived in these shelters went back to the streets.
Shelembe said the city was working hard to ensure that those in its shelters were assisted to get back on their feet and re-establish their lives.
He said should funding become available, the city would look to establish open sleeping areas where they would be put through skills development programmes with the help of NGOs.
“Many of the homeless people have been introduced to agriculture and this will help them turn their lives around, they will be able to earn a living and not go back to the streets, and the department of socials development has been engaged to help some of the homeless people be reunited with their families,” said Shelembe.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the city should focus on profiling homeless people to make sure they were really homeless, as it was not cheap to manage these shelters.
“We have been receiving reports from the city leadership that some of the people that had been placed in shelters had run away, that gives the impression that those running are not really in need.” said Nkosi.
The city has come under fire for the millions of rand it spent on the care of homeless people during the lockdown last year, with some political parties describing the spending on homeless people as a ruse to loot council funds.
The city had tabled a report on how much it will cost to care for the homeless during the lockdown. These figures were later revised down, sparking suspicion from the opposition benches that money was being stolen.
The allegations have been further fuelled by delays in the city tabling a report detailing what was spent on Covid-19 relief programmes.
Opposition party members were outraged after the city again failed to table the report, after promises last year that the report would finally be tabled. The report is now scheduled to be tabled early in February.
The Mercury