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[File photo] Homeless person sleeping on a bench.
Residents at the Durban CBD have started a campaign to remove homeless people and drug addicts from parks and other public areas. Albert Park and Warwick Junction are among the areas that have been occupied following a raid by authorities under a flyover to the M4 next to the port in October last year.
Residents say they want to be able to use these public areas without fearing for their safety.
Homeless people moved into Albert Park following a raid by authorities in October last year, under a bridge across the road from where motorists were being targeted. Now, people living near the park say drugs are being sold there, while pedestrians are also being mugged.
Residents have now taken it upon themselves to rid the park of homeless people, who have erected temporary shelters. Some of the homeless living in the park have also moved on to Warwick triangle, an area used mainly by taxis and hawkers.
Residents of the area have taken it upon themselves to get rid of the homeless.
Muzikayise Mhlongo, one of the homeless people who have been evicted from the park, came from Ulundi to Durban in 1999, looking for work. He is asking that the municipality provide another place where they can stay.
“I think the municipality must give us an alternative place because we are all human beings and we have rights. And people must stop painting us with one brush that we are all criminals of which we are not. For example, I support myself by fixing TVs, radios, speakers and other appliances. But others are involved in criminal activities. We are doing different things to support ourselves. I am a self-employed person,” he says.
A mother of four who also lives in the park, who wanted to remain anonymous, says they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
“It affects me personally, and I feel like even animals have better rights than us. The enforcement agencies provoke us and prompt us to be more violent and behave like animals. They don’t treat us like human beings, and I am a parent as well as I have four children, and we are old enough and sober-minded.”
Community leader Siya Njokweni says they will follow the homeless wherever they go and get them to move on.
“The first is to remove them and dislocate them in their own drug den, and we are going to go to each and every place they are going. We are going to Khuzimpi Shezi road as the community to remove them because we don’t want them in any spot and in any area within our community. The community has children, and they have people to protect, and we are going to take upon ourselves to do that.”
Local councillor, Proteas Mngonyama, is thrilled with the initiative, saying it will have a positive impact.
“We started in November last year and we started by putting up the fence, and may be somewhere next week we are going to complete the fence and make sure that this park is back to the people. And these people will never come back here and we are not only dealing with them in the park but we are going to remove them everywhere so that the city is safe for the residents.”
Mngonyama says they are going to ask the police’s crime intelligence unit to intervene as these homeless people are allegedly used as drug traffickers.
“As part of trying to intercept the drug dealings around the city and even here at Albert Park, we are going to make sure that on our operations we involve SAPS crime intelligence to make sure that we detect this criminality.”
Mngonyama says a shelter is being built for the homeless at Illovo.
