Residents of the controversial No 2 Struben Street homeless shelter in Pretoria will have to find an alternative place to lay their heads at night.
Gauteng Social Development, Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment MEC Mbali Hlophe has announced her intention to close its doors for good following her visit to the sanctuary last week.
The shelter, established in 2004, is meant to accommodate 300 people but it is overflowing, with more than 550 residents, and has become a den of crime and drug use.
It is funded by the Gauteng Department of Social Development, which has enlisted the assistance of the NPO Kitso Lesedi, which supports the residents with food and medical supplies.
However, the municipality-controlled shelter’s days are numbered, according to the government, because it has been failing to attend to its structural maintenance.
The government recently halted R11 million funding towards the daily operations of the shelter.
In a recent visit to the shelter, Hlophe found that the toilets were overflowing and the place was swamped with waste.
Hlophe said: “People have even erected shacks in the building. Police arrested undocumented individuals and those selling drugs and alcohol.
“The facts are glaring… the building belongs to Tshwane, which together with the NPO in question, had to secure the upkeep of the shelter and failed to do this.”
She said she had informed the Tshwane mayoral committee member responsible for housing to urgently shut down the facility and move its residents to a safe space.
“We are consistent in acting against non-compliant NPOs. Early this year, we stopped funding numerous NPOs for non-compliance.
“We remain unshaken in acting against those who want to milk the state for personal enrichment,” she said.
“The suspension of funding in this shelter is not an isolated case.
“Our work as Social Development is to ensure that the most vulnerable are serviced adequately in good and well-maintained spaces and it is also our responsibility to act against those that are contravening the law.
“We will stop at nothing to root out malpractices in this sector so our people are serviced in a dignified manner, instead of issuing media statements that are pointless and out of touch with reality.
“The funding for this facility has been cut and the department will announce the investigation outcomes in due course,” Hlophe reportedly said.
Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the city was implementing its plan to shut down the facility and move residents to alternative accommodation.
“The place has been declared unsafe for the people to stay in and several homeless shelters have been identified to accommodate the homeless,” said Mashigo.
“The facility will be sealed off to avoid invasion. When the funds become available, the facility will be upgraded,” Mashigo said.
It's not the first time the shelter has been threatened with closure. A few years ago Dr Nomathembu Mokgethi, who was then MEC, had promised to shut it down for similar reasons, but this never happened.
Pretoria News