As we mark Social Development Month in October, it is crucial to remind ourselves of the mandate of the Department of Social Development (DSD), which is to ensure protection against vulnerability by creating an enabling environment for the provision of comprehensive, integrated, and sustainable social development services.
This we do by zooming in on one of the elevated priorities in the Department, which seeks to restore the dignity of our people, a program that deals with homelessness in the province.

On 10 October we commemorated World Homeless Day. This international day serves as a platform to advocate for improved policies and funding that can help prevent and end homelessness. World Homeless Day also aims to raise awareness about the needs of people who currently experience homelessness and promote work in local communities to alleviate suffering and prevent death.

In 2020 the Gauteng Department Social Development (GDSD) needed to deal with homeless people during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The department had to respond swiftly to make sure that the homeless people are also protected from the pandemic, and this amongst others meant taking them off the streets to ward off infections and spread of the deadly virus.

In terms of the Bill of Rights, the state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights of all citizens, which include access to health care, food, water, social security, housing and so on. Yet, in most instances homeless people lack access to most of these rights. It is on the basis of protection of human rights of homeless people that the Department intervened in the plight of this vulnerable group.

Due to absent, legislation or policies back then, GDSD had to develop a Comprehensive Intervention plan to address homelessness. Funding was made available to strengthen and increase capacity on existing municipal and NPO-run shelters, hiring social service professionals and support staff, provision of meals and hygienic packs to homeless beneficiaries in shelters across Gauteng province.

Following extensive consultations, and research to look into the causes, nature and needs of the homeless in the province this plan was developed into a full Gauteng City Region Strategy (GCR)to deal with Adult Street Homelessness. The strategy was premised on a multisectoral and developmental approach and was approved by Gauteng EXCO in September 2021.

Where are we now?

Nationally, Department of Social Development is making strides towards having a multi-sectoral national policy on homelessness. To this end a diagnostic study on the needs of the homeless and possible policy recommendations was done in 2022 and targeting the Draft Green Paper on Homelessness by March 2024. In Gauteng, following approval of the GCR Strategy, guidelines for homeless service delivery were developed and approved by the Head of Department in September 2022 and are currently used as a frame of reference for delivering homeless services by NPOs.

Annual funding is available to cater for shelters, meals, hygiene but also critical accredited skills development programmes and job placement. Quite importantly, there is political buy-in as evidenced by Premier Lesufi elevating the homeless issue to priority status in October 2022 and MEC Mbali Hlophe launching the Provincial Shelter Forum in October 2022 as a coordination structure to deal with best practices and challenges faced by NPOs dealing with homelessness. 

South African Human Rights Commission also held a dialogue on addressing homelessness from a law enforcement perspective in September 2023 – key outcome been to approach homelessness from a social development approach first followed by law enforcement.