Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has announced with approval the City of Cape Town’s much awaited new “safe space” program for getting the homeless of the streets.

The new facility is located on a municipal depot in Ebenezer Road, Green Point, and is slated to begin business early next year. The system in place at the facility will us shelter and care interventions to help people off the streets, and refer those suffering from addiction or psychiatric problems for treatment, as well as providing job opportunities, ID documents, social grant access, and active efforts at reuniting them with family.

"Safe spaces offer dignified transitional shelter coupled with care interventions to help people find sustainable pathways off the streets. The city will spend R230 million over three years to operate safe spaces and expand these transitional shelters beyond the CBD and Bellville."

Hill-Lewis plans to continue using the courts to move on vagrants in Cape Town, who by law cannot be moved without alternative accommodation being provided.

"Accepting social assistance to get off the streets is the best choice for dignity, health and well-being. Where offers of help to get off the streets have been persistently refused, we are also seeking help from the courts as a last resort."

Hill-Lewis said that the city had helped more than 3,500 people get off the steets since June last year. Beside the Safe Spaces facility, the City is also encouraging NPOs to follow suit.

The budget will contribute to a 63% bed boost to the CBD’s Haven Night Shelter, expanding this facility from 96 to 156 beds. During the winter, the City further enabled several NGOs to add 300 more temporary bed spaces to cope with additional shelter demand, including the deployment of 184 EPWP workers to assist NPOs.

In total, the City’s Street People programme budget amounts to R94,75m for 23/24, a 23% increase from 22/23 as the only metro dedicating a social development budget to this critical issue.

Aside from the humanitarian concerns, the impact on tourism and community relations is vital - the homelessness issue has become a blight on South African cities, and in the Cape, which has a reputation for being the most developed and well-run, such problems cannot be afforded.