A journalist asked asked me today what it was like to be homeless on a cold and rainy day like the ones we have been having of late.
I found myself saying business as usual because that is what it is for a homeless person who works harder on rainy days.
After all, you have to travel further and longer not only for your skarrel but usually for a place to rest for the night too.
On a rainy day you can't sleep on the mountain for example, except if you have a whole "khaya" set up there – and even then getting yourself up and down the mountain is pretty much an impossible task.
Ask me. Many days I just gave up and stayed where I was and didn't attempt going up or down. And that's the problem.
As soon as you expose yourself, you have those nasty law enforcement units – those in the CBD, especially the parade and surrounds that get a kick out of kicking you awake and telling you to get a move on.
And they are barely gone when CCID (Cape Town central city improvement district) comes at you at the next spot.
Ever wondered why there were so many homeless people on the station like at 4.30am on pre-Covid days?
All "lazy bones sleeping now that it's daylight because they spent all night drugging?"
Well, guess what – yes they were up all night and no one could blame them if they did do drugs that night to cope with being kicked around and pushed around and unable to settle down and get some shut-eye once the station opened!
Getting drenched is something we homeless people are used to. They say this is weather for ducks, well I guess we have learnt to be like ducks!
People don’t realise that when a homeless person breaks down his so-called temporary structure he or she has to hide it all, either in a drain or in a tree and there is nothing like that empty feeling when you return later that evening, tired and wet from the skarrel and you lift that drain cover and it’s all gone!
It’s almost as if your stomach falls out of you in between your legs.
You have no strength and don’t even want to go and find a place to rest.
You just throw down that drain lid – not even closing it properly as you normally would after all you don’t want some lady coming along, get her heel stuck and fall flack about it.
And so tired as you are you carry on your merry way, skarreling as you go along.
You also pick up every drain lid and take out whatever is in those drains tonight.
Most people also ask me why is it that homeless people, even in this kind of weather often still refuse the offer of assistance at our shelters.
If you look at the usual programme the City runs with shelters annually called Winter Readiness, it offers about 10 extra bed spaces per shelter for 3 months.
Come first September even if they had wanted to stay they can’t, so they go back to the streets.
People know that most of what the City offers is temporary and so most homeless people are no longer interested.
And of course, with Covid-19, the extra spaces will also be difficult to offer, so it’s going to beat long cold winter for Cape Town’s homeless people living on the streets
Do what you can with what you have, wherever you are.
* Carlos Mesquita and a handful of others formed HAC (the Homeless Action Committee) that lobbies for the rights of the homeless. He also manages Our House in Oranjezicht, which is powered by the Community Chest. He can be reached at [email protected].
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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