Carlos Mesquita is a homeless activist and also works as a researcher for the Good party in the Western Cape Legislature.
How can we get the City to re-home a growing number of homeless persons in our street, please?
‘As we say goodbye to 2024 and prepare to say hello to 2025, just a reminder that our experience of a particular year is more about what we decide to take into and put into that year. ’
Carlos Mesquita writes that on Sunday, they went back to the streets with our annual ‘Homeless for Christmas 2024’ where the main purpose being to update the data collected during Everybody Counts.
‘As a former homeless man and now activist and friend of those living on the streets, I am for the fourth year in a row going Homeless for Christmas. It’s that time of the year. ’
‘Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, and it’s more common than most of us realize. It’s a hidden crime, meaning victims usually aren’t able or willing to come forward and seek help, or share their experiences after they escape. ’
‘. . . The City, the province and their aligned NGOs would rather waste the money that the public either generously donates to these organisations or pays to the state in taxes than work with anyone that publicly criticizes the model of addressing homelessness they support. . . ’
‘Whilst it’s true impact is that this by law amendment gives the City the right to evict without having to go to court to get an eviction order. This means taking away all means and protections afforded all others being evicted. ’
‘Even without looking at the statistics, it’s easy to imagine the connection between people who are unhoused and those who struggle with substance use disorders. ’
The City of Cape Town has been aggressively clearing homeless encampments across the city since a High Court judgment granted the City a conditional order to evict those individuals living at the Three Anchor Bay Tennis Club earlier this year.
The City of Cape Town and Mayor Geordin Hill Lewis need to explain to the ratepayers of Cape Town why it is that they are not honouring the promises they have made and keep making in court to those living on the streets.
COLUMN: Carlos Mesquita writes that the extent of homelessness in South Africa is extremely difficult to ascertain, and that this in turn points to our greatest failure in addressing homelessness.
Carlos Mesquita writes that he has taken a moment to reflect on the past four years since leaving the streets as he marks his fourth anniversary as the Cape Argus’ Dignity Project columnist
COLUMN: ‘This coming Thursday is World Homeless Day and World Mental Health Day. It is highly significant that these two days fall on the same date, as it is crucial to recognise the correlation between the two. ’
‘The number of elderly individuals experiencing homelessness is rising. The number of elderly individuals experiencing sheltered homelessness nearly doubled from 2019 to 2023. It’s not slowing down, either. ’
OPINION: ‘The unfathomable psychological stress of not having a place to live can be unbearable, causing some homeless mental health patients to do drugs – but probably not for the reasons you would expect. ’
COLUMN: ‘We often complain about those living on the streets behaving in anti-social ways, but the mere fact that most people ignore people experiencing homelessness is in itself anti-social behaviour. ’
We have internalised the often false preconceived ideas and myths that are often featured in the media or in political narratives.
Part 2 of a two-part column on Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’ opening of a Safe Space for the homeless in Green Point recently.
This is the first part of a two-part column responding to the opening of a new Safe Space by Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in Green Point.
I am extremely angry this week. I am angry because I have spent the past two weeks trying to accommodate people living on the streets in dignified and sustainable places of accommodation, with the assistance of a small group of donors.
With a small group of donors, I have been accommodating those that the City has this past week, – during the most challenging weather conditions imaginable – been illegally evicting and displacing, without court orders or offers of alternative accommodation.
Last week, I started sharing with readers a more or less typical Thursday in my life as a homeless man when I had been homeless for about four years.
‘I am going to take you on a day trip with me during my fourth year of homelessness. I need to emphasise that not every day would be the same and my experience is not the same as that of anyone else living on the streets. ’
COLUMN: On June 18, 2024, High Court Acting Judge MJ Bishop, granted the the City of Cape Town the right to evict between 99 and 140 people living at seven sites belonging to the City in the CBD.
COLUMN: As we welcome in our new administration, we must also remember that the previous administration had commissioned a green paper on developing a national policy on homelessness, and that we have a duty to ensure this policy is informed by fact and a lived experience.
