CAPE TOWN - In a church hall in Mowbray, a group of 10 homeless people are finding new hope and purpose in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The New Hope SA microsite is a small-scale home for people who lived on the street before lockdown began.
Founder Richard Bolland has worked with homeless people for many years, hosting weekly suppers at St Peter’s Church in Mowbray. When lockdown began, with its dangers for homeless people especially obvious, he got to work with partners to set up a small site to provide shelter and necessities.
“For the last 10 years I’ve dreamt of being involved in running a shelter for the homeless. Thankfully, with the help and guidance of so many people, it was made possible,” Bolland said.
The New Hope shelter has been running for just over a month.
“There can be no trust with rigid rules, punitive punishments and sub-par food and comfort,” Bolland said.
“We wanted trust to flourish and so the residents created a community contract which determined the rules and consequences for breaking them.
It has not been without intense emotional struggle though.
“We’ve been through it all already,” Bolland said. “Having a dear friend pass away, seeing friends relapse and run away - it’s been hard. However, through perseverance, tears and hardship we are seeing something beautiful forming.”
Six of the 10 people staying at the shelter were previously at the City of Cape Town’s Strandfontein temporary shelter. They stayed there for 36 days until the controversial temporary shelter was closed down.
Many of them are still feeling traumatised by their experience of the Strandfontein site, where they say they were surrounded by fighting, substance abuse and the fear of infection being passed around the tightly-packed tents of people.
“We were not treated in a human way, so we opted to go for violence,” said Gino Mahume. “People had to behave like baboons in order to be treated like human beings.”
He said being in the New Hope microsite was a completely different experience.
“This is love that we are being shown here,” he said. “We are receiving all the necessities. We have our own beds and everything.”
The six men at the shelter already knew Bolland from the Thursday night suppers hosted at the church.
Bolland and his team took the men directly to a private facility in Pinelands where they were tested for Covid-19. Back at the St Peter’s shelter, they were given food, clothing and everything they needed to wash. They were then quarantined for five days, until their test results and lack of symptoms marked them Covid-free.
The microsite costs R5000 per week to run, which works out to R2000 per person per month. This includes three healthy meals a day and snacks, social work support, medical support, medication, 24-hour supervision in case of emergencies, access to the internet, news and entertainment, workshops and skills courses, including computer literacy.
To donate or find out more, see www.newhopeSA.org/microsite.