Aaron Nicodemus
Nugget Park, a small dirt square at the corner of Nugget and Saratoga streets, has become a battleground in Johannesburg’s war on homelessness.
Every so often – there’s no predicting when, homeless people say – an unmarked car or van will pull up to Nugget Park, men in street clothes will get out and begin taking all their belongings.
Clothes, blankets, food, chairs. And worst of all, according to Thobela Elizabeth ”Lizzy” Makoba (55), the men take their identity documents.
”They are coming like vultures for us,” she says. ”They have taken my ID three times. When they come here, they take everything. I’m left with nothing.”
Makoba and several other homeless people in Nugget Park, including Sam Mosia (55), were arrested on a Friday evening recently and held at a local jail. When they appeared before a magistrate on the Monday, he simply released them. The Nugget Park homeless tell harrowing stories of being beaten, sprayed with water and choked by tear gas.
Judy Bass, co-ordinator for Paballo ya Batho, a homeless outreach program administered from the Central Methodist church, calls the city’s actions ”deplorable. I think the worst thing for me is the total disrespect for humanity.
”They have succeeded in clearing the streets of the poor. The things they take – it might be rubbish to them but it’s all they have.”
Homeless communities on Plein Street and on Brande Street have also been targeted, Bass said.
The crisis manager for the Eastern Metropolitan Council, Arthur Adendorff, says that the confiscation of personal possessions on park property is part of his job.
”We cannot sit back and watch the place going to the dogs,” Adendorff said. ”Our job is to keep the parks clean and safe. We cannot allow people to sleep and do business in our parks.”
Adendorff says that 18 months ago, prostitution was being conducted outside the nearby school, that 40 homeless people lived illegally in the park and that there was a flourishing illegal beer-brewing business there.
Adendorff says the prostitutes are gone and many of the homeless have been relocated to Wheeler’s Farm, located near Soweto. ”I’m doing my job.”
Adendorff says that his enforcement unit regularly sweeps the park, confiscating materials used to make homemade beer. As part of that, the unit also takes blankets and chairs and clothes.
But any IDs accidentally taken should be returned. ”We will return the IDs, and I have instructed my men to return all IDs,” he said. Some IDs probably end up being dumped with the rest of the trash, he said.
He says: ”I only have so much patience before I am expected to produce. You have to come to a point where the talking is over and you have to go over to enforcement.”
As to the methods used to remove the homeless, Adendorff said that the homeless people in Nugget Park and other areas have been given verbal warnings and eviction notices, and provided with a place to stay.
The homeless have nicknamed the relocation point of Wheeler’s Farm ”Tula Ntwana”, literally ”Quiet, My Children”. The nickname relates the shame and pain homeless people feel at being relocated there.
The city council originally cleared some high grass away, brought water three times a day and provided portable toilets. But when more and more homeless people were brought in, they were dumped in the tall grass and told to create their own space.
Toilets overflowed, and water was delivered only sporadically. Many of the homeless people at Nugget Park tell humorous stories about the big snakes that live in the grass.
But more importantly, the remote location left few options for people to find food or ”piece” jobs, part-time work that is occasionally available in the city.
”There’s no way we can live there,” says Mosia, who along with about half-a-dozen homeless people walked back to Nugget Park.
The city is actively trying to deal with its homeless problem. According to Matume Gaffane, the Eastern Metropolitan Council’s executive officer for housing, the council has begun renovating the Turkish Baths building on the corner of Nugget and De Villiers streets as a homeless shelter.
The homeless people who had ”invaded” that building were evicted after proper notice and a court order, he said. The council is spending R380 000 to renovate the building, which will hold up to 150 homeless people. Several other projects are either under way or finished.
Gaffane says that the homeless people sleeping on the pavement outside are blocking construction equipment from getting into the building.
”The building is supposed to be occupied by homeless people, but we have to get the equipment inside,” he said.
The building should be completed by May, and then the council will begin taking applications from homeless people.