FOLLOWING a community-wide meeting attended by over a hundred concerned residents from Lower Illovo and the surrounding communities on May 25 about the establishment of a homeless shelter, and an engagement the following morning outside the construction site with eThekwini Community Development and local authorities, a community consultation will be held tomorrow (May 27) at the Lower Illovo Sports Ground at 13:00.

Mxolisi Manyoni of eThekwini Community Development shed light to the community members and has resolved to organise tomorrow’s meeting. He assured that work will cease until the meeting on May 27.

Also read: Lower Illovo residents protest homeless shelter revival

“After we saw the SUN article about Sakhithemba Homeless Shelter, we saw the need to engage further with the community. We have held numerous meetings with ward 109 councillor, Menzi Wilfred Manqele, and roleplayers in the community, who suggested we also engage with the local pastor. We did not have time because it was towards the end of the year. We were of the view that Manqele would proceed with a community meeting to introduce the programme and what it is about, but we can see that nothing of the sort happened. Tomorrow, we are going to carry this out,” explained Manyoni.

A lifelong Lower Illovo resident, Gopie Krishna Tagat, said that previously, when the shelter there was operational, the community grappled with robberies and muggings.

He reiterated that neither residents around the area nor businesses were consulted. He said, “We have a primary school right around the corner and a high school down the road. All their lives are at stake. We have decided that enough is enough as we were informed the council had a year to consult with the community and there has been no communication. We need to stop this project and get answers and that is why we had this engagement today. We will be having another meeting tomorrow at the Lower Illovo Sports ground at 13:00 and I encourage the community to come out in numbers once again to show that we are against this project.”

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