FED up with the increasing aggressive behaviour from vagrants at busy intersections, community members from the Berea SCF sector one were joined by Berea SAPS and Metro Police as well as members from Save Our Berea and took to the streets to physically get motorists to think twice about encouraging begging and vagrancy.
The protestors stood at the busy intersection of St Thomas and Essenwood Roads last Thursday evening in peak traffic handing out flyers with a simple message: “Please don't encourage people to beg on our streets. We ask that you give to your local child welfare or non government organisation.”
“We are not heartless,” Wayne Grundy of Save Our Berea explained, “but rather saying give food and money to organisations. We want to encourage people to give responsibly and to organisations like Icare and Umthombo that look after the homeless. Unfortunately its a vicious cycle: beg, receive, rob, drugs and back to begging. They should be in a place of safety,” he said.
A gripe Grundy had was that he, together with the rest of the community, had to be given special permission from police to stand at the intersection to spread their message, while the vagrants didn't need any permission to harass passing motorists.
“Our beautiful Berea, and even Glenwood and beyond feel like they are under siege from these so called homeless people,” said a women protesting against encouraging vagrants at the very robots, where a young man was nearly robbed by three beggars earlier that day.
Judy Bowland carrying a sign which read: “Say no to aggressive beggars,” and “Hoot to show support,” said, “I've had enough, they are at every street corner and they are aggressive and shout at us that we are stingy or swear at us.”
Colleen van Rensburg of the CPF Sector One believes the vagrants have become more aggressive in the last few months. “Pressure needs to be put on the police to patrol that park, especially at night to root out those that sleep there. It doesn’t help to patrol the park every now and then,” she said.
A 74 year-old woman who works close to the intersection and passes it daily told Berea Mail she was harassed by a beggar last week. “The guy told me “You only give me a smile every day and nothing else!” and then proceeded to spit at me and banged on my car as he walked around it. I was shocked and intimidated but I leaned on my hooter until other motorists started glaring at him and he moved on,” she said. The woman said she felt threatened because he had recognised her and her car as a regular at the intersection.
Captain Dingaan of Metro Police said he was glad to support the pro-active crime awareness initiative. “We at MetroPolice focus on beggars at intersections which is an illegal activity and have daily operations to get vagrants of the streets.”
Lieutenant PN Naidoo of Berea SAPS said the initiative was aimed at making people more aware that they shouldn't give to people loitering and begging at streets and robots. “We have increased patrols and are monitoring the busy intersections where they operate and stop and search vagrants when the public inform us that they are carrying weapons,” he said.
