Cape Town - The City of Cape Town, which is hoping to remove homeless people from about ten locations in the CBD, has been granted an application to serve eviction notices.
This, after it filed legal papers in the Western Cape High Court, for unlawful occupations in public spaces.
The eviction notices are expected to be served prior to the matter being heard in April.
The areas of unlawful occupation include FW De Klerk Boulevard, along Buitengracht Street, the Foreshore, Strand Street and the traffic intersection at the Cape of Good Hope Castle.
According to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, they approached the court as a last resort, in cases where all offers of support are indefinitely refused.
He said the City’s social development officials made repeated offers of social assistance to the homeless people, such as transitional shelter at NGO-run night shelters and City-run safe spaces.
Some people accepted the offers while others rejected them.
“We have done our absolute level best over the past year to extend every offer of care to each of these people, and to help them off the streets.
“Where this has been persistently refused, we must now ask the courts for the order we are seeking.
“No person has the right to reserve a public space as exclusively theirs, while indefinitely refusing all offers of shelter and social assistance.
“Illegal occupations of City open spaces impact the safety of traffic and pedestrians, as well as local businesses critical to growing the economy,” said Hill-Lewis.
He said this financial year R77 million had been budgeted to respond to the challenge of homelessness by expanding care interventions.
Cape Times