Help wanted for homeless shelter
We are reaching out to you, the community of Centurion.
A non-profit organisation based in Centurion is desperately looking for a piece of vacant land with water and electricity where it can place fully-fitted container housing units to house homeless people in need.
“We are willing to negotiate a fee which is within our means as a non-profit organisation,” said Kerry Rohrer, one of Centurion Haven of Hope’s founder members.
She asked for anyone who can help to please get in touch with them.
The units they have also include ablution containers.
Rohrer said that when they opened their doors during the onset of Covid-19 in early 2020, they not only helped in taking homeless people off Centurion streets, but also reunited families.
Haven of Hope reintegrated them back into society, assisted with substance abuse, offered psycho-social assessments and job assistance while also providing food parcel assistance to destitute families.
“We had numerous success cases with our programmes,” she said.
She invited the local community to visit their temporary Covid-19 shelter (“our family”).
“Come see the impact we are making on not only on the homeless, but also the destitute,” she said.
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Rohrer also said the area was in need of a permanent shelter.
“So we are reaching out to you, the community.”
According to co-founder Tebogo Mpufane, the organisation received only a limited number of units thus far.
“We hope there would be more once we can find a piece of vacant land where the units can be placed more permanently as they were currently based at the Lyttelton community hall.
“The more land we have, the more containers we can accommodate.
“However, we don’t have a place in Centurion where we can put these containers,” he said.
Mpufane welcomed the donation of units.
“We have worked hard throughout the more than 300 days in which we have been operational, ensuring that the homeless people we took in were looked after, fed and weaned off the substances they abused.
“We have come this far and now here’s a solution to having a shelter in the area,” he said.
This comes after the shelter at the Lyttelton art gallery/community library was closed down to allow it to reopen for members of the public earlier this month, leaving 48 vulnerable people without shelter.
Around 19 women and 11 children were moved to a homeless shelter facility in the west of Pretoria while seven men were moved to Akasia and another 10 to the community hall.
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