Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has officially opened the city’s new 300-bed Safe Space shelter, which will help get more homeless people off the streets in central Cape Town. The mayor was accompanied by Patricia van der Ross, Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health.
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The facility, located in a portion of the municipal depot on Ebenezer Road in Green Point, is the fifth Safe Space opened by the City, bringing the total number of beds to 1070.
City-funded Safe Spaces provide dignified transitional shelter and social programmes to help people get off the streets, reintegrate them into society, and reunite them with their families. Personal development planning and employment opportunities are available, as well as referrals to mental health, medical and substance abuse treatment.
The City also operates two additional Safe Spaces in Culemborg in the east CBD (510 total beds), as well as Paint City Bellville (220 beds) and Durbanville (40 beds). A new Safe Space is also planned to serve the greater Muizenberg area.
‘It is a joy to open this brand new Safe Space in Green Point, which will make a huge difference to the overall shelter capacity to help more people off the streets in central Cape Town.
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‘Cape Town is making an unprecedented investment of R220 million to expand and operate our Safe Space shelters around the city. In this way we are putting caring, social developmental approaches at the centre of our strategy to help more homeless people off the streets, and to ensure that public places are open and available to all.
‘Accepting social assistance to get off the streets is the best choice for dignity, health, and well-being. No person has the right to reserve a public space as exclusively theirs, while indefinitely refusing all offers of shelter and social assistance,’ said Hill-Lewis.
Last year, the City further enabled a 63% bed boost to the CBD’s Haven Night Shelter, expanding this NGO-run facility from 96 to 156 beds via a R500 000 cost contribution.
‘The City already helps around 3 500 people annually with shelter placement or referrals to an array of social services. We look forward to expanding these services to help many more people off the streets in central Cape Town in partnership with the community and civil society,’ said Patricia van der Ross, Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health.
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Picture: City of Cape Town