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‘A travesty of human rights’ — Cape Town shelter occupants tell of degrading conditions

The conditions at the Safe Space One shelter under Culemborg Bridge on the Cape Town Foreshore. Residents of the site have alleged that conditions there are unhygienic and undignified. (Photo: Supplied)

By Tamsin Metelerkamp

14 Jul 2024

‘The beds are soaked, the floors are soaked. Your clothing as well because there’s nowhere to put your clothing — it all gets wet. Everything’s damp, cold,’ said one resident of Safe Space One.

Residents of the Safe Space One shelter under the Culemborg Bridge on the Cape Town Foreshore say poor and degrading living conditions at the site are affecting the health and wellbeing of those who stay there.

These claims emerged against a backdrop of intense storms and harsh winds, which have battered the city for the past week. A Level 8 weather warning was issued for Thursday, 11 July, covering Cape Town and neighbouring regions.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Western Cape weather warnings remain as response teams race to help those in need

Safe Space One is a transitional shelter established by the City of Cape Town to provide temporary accommodation for people who are living on the streets. It is managed by an external service provider, with the city providing an annual budget of R8,500,000 for the site. The shelter is located next to Safe Space Two, also under the Culemborg Bridge.

Safe Space Two has prefabricated buildings with solid walls and ceilings. However, residents of Safe Space One say the shelter there is more rudimentary.

Apart from the bridge about 15m up, the cover at Safe Space One consists of corrugated iron roofs on poles, with no walls, and beds lined alongside one another underneath. Some occupants have erected their own walls using materials such as blankets or plastic sheeting. A fence around the entire area has green netting lining it.

According to the city’s website, when Safe Space One opened in 2018 it had space for up to 230 people.

cape town shelter travesty The conditions at the Safe Space One shelter under Culemborg Bridge on the Cape Town Foreshore. Residents of the site have alleged that conditions there are unhygienic and undignified. (Photo: Supplied)

Matthew van der Merwe, a resident of Safe Space One, said that because of the current weather, “The beds are soaked, the floors are soaked. Your clothing as well because there’s nowhere to put your clothing — it all gets wet. Everything’s damp, cold.”

Van der Merwe worked as an operations director overseas before returning to assist his mother while she was ill. Shortly after she died in February 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. He has been struggling to find work since and has spent time living on the streets in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

He described the conditions at Safe Space One as a “travesty of human rights”.

Health and safety concerns

Residents of Safe Space One told Daily Maverick that there were many rats at the site, which get into beds and bags, gnaw through belongings like blankets and bite those living there.

“[Safe Space One] is a massive health concern. The rats, the infestation of lice, bedbugs and fleas is one thing… People have been bitten by rats,” Van der Merwe said. “If you look closely enough anywhere, you can see the lice.”

cape town shelter travesty A photo allegedly shows the legs of a resident at Safe Space One under Culemborg Bridge who sustained multiple rat bites at the shelter. (Photo: Supplied)

Another Safe Space One resident, Simon Raath, has raised health and safety concerns related to the allegedly overcrowded area at the shelter and the lack of lighting there at night, which he says could be a problem during an emergency like a fire. He estimated about 280 people were living at the site.

Raath is an entrepreneur who founded a company called DavidEllen Studio and is in the process of setting up a nonprofit organisation aimed at assisting people living in shelters. He said his divorce was the catalyst for him losing his home.

“I didn’t plan on getting into this situation but the plan is to not stay in it. However, a lot of people have said to me in the last few months that there comes a point where people cross that line — the point of no return — and they throw in the towel... This becomes the new reality,” he said.

Commenting on the effects of the cold weather at the shelter, he said, “I try to maintain a strong immune system but some people don’t — some are old, some are sick.”

Nicolas Lievens, a 22-year-old resident of Safe Space One, said the portable toilets and showers at the shelter were often unsanitary.

“The toilets have a humid stench, there’s no flush. When I say it’s a high level in those current toilets, we’re talking about green sanitiser mixed with urine and faeces stacked up [very high],” he said.

“If you look at the bottom of the showers, in the grooves of the plastic you can see the little lice going into the holes.

“We have fumigations, but then the rats are gone for maybe two, three hours and then when it’s 10 o’clock and it’s bright again ... it’s all over the place — rats climbing in people’s food.”

cape town shelter travesty A photo allegedly shows the state of a portable toilet at Safe Space One shelter under Culemborg Bridge on the Cape Town foreshore. (Photo: Supplied)

Residents said the quality of food at the shelter was poor and that there had been cases of food poisoning.

In November 2023, IOL reported that there had been an outbreak of a “food-borne illness” at the Safe Space One shelter which resulted in people being taken to hospital for treatment.

Richard Wildeman, an activist who has been assisting people who live on the street or in shelters, said he had been working with residents of Safe Space One, trying to address some of the problems they had raised.

“It isn’t really a place that you can call a Safe Space. I don’t know why they call it Safe Space in the first place because it’s really not safe,” he said.

“I’ve done a social experiment where I booked myself into the space under different names… I can testify to all that they are saying. It’s really not what they want people to believe.”

The claims of Safe Space One occupants about unsanitary and undignified conditions at the shelter come less than a month after Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis uploaded a video to the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), in which he said, “Here at our Safe Spaces, people can have the dignity that they don’t have living on the streets.”

In the video, he appears to be standing outside Safe Space Two under the Culemborg Bridge.

? IMPORTANT UPDATE on homelessness:

After a long wait, the Western Cape High Court has granted the eviction order the @CityofCT sought for various tented camps in the CBD. This is an opportunity to extend care to those who need it and help the homeless on the path to… pic.twitter.com/BLh9HuMBjy

— Geordin Hill-Lewis (@geordinhl) June 19, 2024

Getting off the street

When asked why occupants continued to stay at the shelter despite the conditions, Raath pointed out that life on the street was very dangerous. He recalled being stabbed 26 times in a mugging attempt while living as an unhoused person. “My jacket saved my life,” he said.

The occupants of Safe Space One who spoke to Daily Maverick said it was a common misconception that all those who lived on the street ended up in that situation because of problems with drug or alcohol use.

Van der Merwe said, “These homeless people … are some of the most loving and generous people I have met … and I’m hoping that this will show the homeless in a different light because it can be your brother, your sister. There’s 50-year-old to 80-year-old women in these shelters that have just been left.”

This view was echoed by Lievens, who said that there was a significant number of people living in the shelter who were struggling with mental health issues or were elderly and in need of additional support.

“We have a big problem with people that belong in a … mental institution where they can get the real help that they need, getting violently assaulted sometimes because they beg… There’s people that need to be in an old age home — there’s old ladies that need to be with their grandkids — that just accept this. The abnormal has become normal to them. This situation is abnormal,” he said.

The City of Cape Town has stated that accommodation at Safe Space shelters comes with access to rehabilitative services including referral to specialist social services and reintegration into society, as well as educational opportunities like computer skills, family strengthening and entrepreneurship programmes.

However, Van der Merwe said that some educational courses at the shelter appeared to be box-ticking exercises rather than substantive learning opportunities. He claimed that some people received certificates despite incomplete or interrupted coursework.

City of Cape Town’s response

Daily Maverick asked the City of Cape Town about the claims that Safe Space One residents were living in inhumane and undignified conditions. It responded that on the scale of health and dignity, there was “no comparison” between what the city was offering and what the occupants endured living on the street.

“To live on the streets with no access to ablution or shelter is deeply undignified, unhealthy and detrimental to the wellbeing of the unlawful occupant and the public in general,” said the city.

The city referred to a high court ruling, handed down on 18 June, that approved the eviction of unhoused persons occupying public spaces in seven sites in Cape Town’s inner city, on the condition that the city offered alternative accommodation to the evictees.

“The court ruling specified that the test of what is just and equitable is whether the Safe Spaces are better than the current living conditions of the occupants. There can be absolutely no doubt that the offer of Safe Space accommodation at any of the city’s facilities is materially and substantially better than the conditions under which the respondents find themselves currently,” it said.

“They are being offered shelter, a bed, ablution facilities, meals, access to medical care, social workers, substance abuse treatment via the Matrix programme (with an 83% success rate), and opportunities to find work via [the Expanded Public Works Programme].”

Responding to claims of overcrowding within Safe Space One (SS1), the city said that all the city’s Safe Spaces had specified capacities that were not exceeded, though the facilities did tend to be at capacity during “inclement weather in winter”.

“The shelter at SS1 has been upgraded recently to ensure the roof of the highway is waterproof and the wind is abated. The sleeping quarters are protected and not wet. Further upgrades to all the City’s Safe Spaces will be completed in the next few months,” stated the city.

“Overall, the city will spend R220-million over the next three years to operate Safe Spaces and expand the number of facilities in the metropole.”

The city said the pest control company Xcell Environmental Services had been appointed to provide monthly pest control services at Safe Space One and Two.

“These services include pest disinfestation and rodent control,” it said. “The city’s Environmental Health Department has also provided additional bait stations.”

When asked whether Safe Space One shelter adhered to the norms and standards for shelters when it came to the need for fire safety, hygiene and compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act No 85 of 1993, the city responded, “All the City’s Safe Spaces are monitored for legislative compliance on an ongoing basis. As indicated, the specified capacities are not exceeded.”

The city said the Safe Spaces offered “dignified transitional shelter and social programmes to assist people off the streets sustainably, reintegrate them into society and reunite them with family.

“Personal development planning and employment opportunities are made available, as are referrals for mental health, medical and substance abuse treatment. Rehabilitation can only occur with the buy-in of occupants and cannot be forced upon them. It is a genuine service on offer to all those who wish to get on with their lives off the streets,” it said.

“In the 12 months ending June 2023, the city helped almost 3,500 individuals with shelter placement or referrals to an array of social services. This includes 2,246 shelter placements, 112 family reunifications and reintegrations, 1,124 referrals to social services and over 880 short-term contractual job opportunities via the Expanded Public Works Programme.”

Daily Maverick requested the city’s permission to arrange a visit to Safe Space One on Thursday, 11 July.

It responded, “While the city does occasionally invite media to planned visits to SS1 and SS2, ad hoc media access is not permissible as a general principle to safeguard the dignity of those who take up dignified transitional shelter at these facilities, often in difficult and complex circumstances.”

A visit to the site was later approved but has not yet taken place.

Impending evictions

The eviction of more than 100 unhoused persons living at the seven sites around Cape Town’s inner city is due to take place by the end of July. When the high court order was handed down in June, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (Seri), which represented the occupants of these sites, said the city would offer alternative accommodation for evictees at Safe Space One.

However, the city has since stated that the evictees will be offered alternative accommodation at Ebenezer Safe Space 3 in Green Point, which is set to open within the next month.

“Ebenezer Safe Space offers ample shelter for the respondents,” the city told Daily Maverick.

According to Seri, one of the conditions that the city needs to meet to evict the occupants of the seven sites is to amend the shelter rules to make them more “humane and constitutionally compliant”.

“After the amendments, partners will not be separated into gender‑segregated accommodation but will be allowed to live together; shelter residents will not be locked out during the day; and people will not be limited to six months living at the safe spaces if they do not have alternative accommodation,” said Seri.

The city has offered Daily Maverick the opportunity to view progress at the Ebenezer Safe Space later this week. DM

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South Africa

Health and safety concerns

Getting off the street

City of Cape Town’s response

Impending evictions