How we can help the homeless during lockdown

There are more displaced people wandering the streets now than before lockdown. And there is no coherent plan at any level of government to deal with them.

Lockdown rules are not applied to the estimated 50,000 homeless people in Gauteng.

“So why don’t the police arrest them?” asks a resident on the Ward 90 Joburg Facebook page. “We can’t go for a f$&@ing jog, but there are 50,000 homeless people left to come and go as they please?”

Arrest is not an option. These folk cannot afford fines. And there isn’t space in South African prisons, which were 37% overcrowded before lockdown.

Homeless people need protection from Covid-19, but government is not taking responsibility. Gauteng has more Covid-19 infections than any other province. This will worsen if 50 000 homeless people are ignored.

Where do they fit it in to plans announced by Professor Salim Karim in Monday night’s televised presentation?

Karim said South Africa has a “unique component” to its Covid-19 response – active case finding. “Only South Africa has more than 28 000 community healthcare workers going house-to-house in vulnerable communities for screening and testing to find cases.”

Vulnerable communities include townships and informal settlements, but so far I have seen no reference to screening and testing of displaced people who “come and go as they please”. How will healthcare workers go house-to-house with people of no fixed abode?

There have been announcements about housing the homeless in schools. But many schools, churches, scout groups and other institutions have baulked in the absence of guarantees.

There is talk about housing homeless in stadiums. But only a small number of people are placed in shelters, most of which are temporary.

Covid-19 should compel us all to focus on the future of the homeless worldwide. They will not disappear. Big shelters accommodating large numbers of people would be inappropriate when social distancing is required.

Large establishments are prone to outbreaks. Last week, 70 people tested positive in one of San Francisco’s biggest homeless shelters.

Small is Beautiful, to quote the title of an influential book by German-born British economist EF Schumacher, who argued for building economies around the needs of communities.

It’s an apt approach to homelessness in cities such as Johannesburg. In the current climate there are many suburbanites who want to help those in need but who are not sure how.

Now the time is right to tap into that goodwill. National, provincial and local governments are not coping with the homeless.

Even their feeding schemes, aimed at more settled populations, can’t function without outside assistance.

This should become more localised. Residents’ associations and non-governmental organisations could be empowered to, for example, set up tents, and manage the health and food needs of the smaller numbers of homeless people in their own suburbs.

Moving people to big camps is not working. In Cape Town and Tshwane, people are absconding in large number from such places.

If we care about the homeless, we need to identify multiple small venues in our communities. And pull together. Don’t rely on government for anything except permission.

Martin Williams, DA councillor and former editor of The Citizen.

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