More than 200 people living on the streets of Mamelodi were counted over the weekend.

The Tshwane Homeless Count initiative is a census to determine how many people are currently living on the streets and if the number of available shelters is sufficient.

The University of Pretoria Unit for Street Homelessness, Tshwane Homeless Forum, Thandanani Drop Inn Centre and non-profit organisations helped with the count.

Kate Kekana from Thandanani Drop Inn Centre said the initiative was a success, as all the stakeholders and volunteers came on board.

“In Mamelodi, it was a bit challenging as we had more than 70 volunteers joined by the CPF and the police because of the rain.”

Kekana said the volunteers braved the cold and rainy weather to count people at the identified hotspots around Mamelodi from 18:00 until 02:00, including at Mamelodi Hostel blocks and Mabeshane.

“The homeless count was not all about numbers but to talk to the people living on the streets around Tshwane and Mamelodi and understand how they ended up on the street or being homeless,” said Kekana.

“We are not satisfied with the number of homeless people we managed to count over the weekend. We may need to partly repeat the count as the rain had forced some people to move from their usual places,” said Kekana.

“Thandanani Centre has been assisting the homeless people and drug addicts with food, restoring dignity, promoting health, and opening doors to social and employment opportunities to help individuals out of homelessness,” said Kekana.

During the homeless count, all the participants were given a warm meal, vegetables and snacks.

Kekana added that knowing how many people are homeless helps civil society organisations apply for adequate government funding.

MMC for Community and Social Development Services, Palesa Modise, said the Tshwane Homeless Count initiative is a collaborative, citywide, in-person enumeration exercise aimed at gathering accurate and up-to-date data on individuals experiencing homelessness in the city.

She said the initiative forms part of the city’s broader commitment to developing evidence-based, targeted and sustainable interventions to address homelessness and support vulnerable residents.

Since its introduction in 2022, the Homeless Count has become an important tool in strengthening the city’s understanding of homelessness and the social dynamics that contribute to it.

“The exercise seeks to address the challenge of inconsistent data by providing a reliable snapshot of the population living on the streets,” said Modise.

During the count, trained volunteers and partners engaged with individuals experiencing homelessness to collect key demographic and social information, including age, gender, location and circumstances that led to homelessness.

She said this information will help the city and its partners better understand the root causes of homelessness, which often include unemployment, substance dependency, family breakdown, mental health challenges and other social vulnerabilities.

“The findings from the Homeless Count will assist in informing municipal planning, policy development and budgeting, ensuring that programmes designed to support homeless individuals are responsive and impactful,” she said.

As a research-driven initiative, it also contributes to refining methodologies used to understand homelessness in African urban contexts.

This important initiative is about understanding the lived realities of people experiencing homelessness so that meaningful and sustainable interventions that restore dignity and opportunity can be designed.

Beyond enumeration, the initiative seeks to support long-term solutions that enable individuals experiencing homelessness to transition into safer and more stable living conditions, including access to shelters, social development services, rehabilitation programmes and reintegration opportunities.

In 2022, Thandanani Drop Inn Centre officially launched its mobile laundry service for the homeless in celebration of World Homeless Day.

The centre brought two washing machines, a generator, bath tubs, buckets, washing soap to the old Mamelodi hostels in Block Y and washed clothes and blankets for the homeless.

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