Over 200 volunteers unite for Joburg's groundbreaking homelessness point-in-time count

More than 200 volunteers gathered at Standard Bank Command Centre in Selby recently to undertake the city’s first standalone homeless point-in-time count (PITC). Led by Jozi My Jozi and partners, it was a big moment in Johannesburg’s response to homelessness.

A PITC is a single-night survey, generally done twice a year, to gather data about homelessness in a specific area to try to understand the problem and develop strategies for people who end up on the street. It was started in Chicago and New York as a collaborative way to take ownership of the problem – rather than punitive policing. A PITC maps out hotspots and identifies the complex problems that keep people unhoused. 

The Jozi My Jozi PITC was a real on-the-ground effort. To put 200 people safely on the streets of downtown Jozi at night, divided into teams, equipped with questionnaires, safety gear and tight security support, took months of planning.

Standard Bank coordinated the security along with the South African Police Service and metro cops. The Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) provided more than 70 graduates from its Security Mastery Academy. The volunteers included students from the University of Johannesburg and concerned citizens. Jozi My Jozi partnered with Mould Empower Serve, a faith-based homeless NGO, U-turn Homeless Ministries, the City of Joburg and various social development organisations. Nando’s fed everyone.

People gathered at 6pm, were registered, placed in teams and given a briefing. “Don’t overwhelm people, don’t wake up sleeping individuals, be polite, always be safe, treat people with dignity,” they were told, since the whole idea of a PITC is to combine compassion with data.

I joined Team A6 (there were eight in the CBD, four in Hillbrow and nine in Linden, a hotspot outside the CBD), which was led by a female MII graduate whom I’d seen before in a parade overturn an enormous guy with a deft jujitsu move. There were 15 people in the team, more women than men. All were assigned roles such as engagers – they were to approach the homeless individuals and ask basic questions – note takers, observers, security, general eyes and ears. One of the A6 members was a police officer from Joburg Central; some of the other teams had ex-homeless people participating.

The CBD was divided into different areas and teams were then dispatched into the night. A6 was dropped off by a local taxi (part of a PITC taxi transport plan) at the corner of Eloff and Lilian Ngoyi streets, a downbeat area where the electricity is sketchy and the streets dirty. There was a group of young homeless men huddled in an alleyway sheltered only by corrugated iron. Not far away, a single man slept alone on the pavement.

Over three hours A6 covered about six or seven square blocks that included the area around Pitje Chambers; the high court; the statue of Carl von Brandis; Marble Towers; Anstey’s Building; the area known as Little Addis, an Ethiopian neighbourhood in a series of buildings on Rahima Moosa Street (formerly Jeppe Street) between Troye and Delvers streets; the Carlton Centre; and the Small Street mall.

Daunting and chaotic by day, it was quiet by night, with only a few small shops open. There were people sleeping rough and gangs of waste pickers huddled under plastic. There was even more evidence of homelessness in the direction of Polly Street, on the edge of Hillbrow, where there are clubs and brothels, late-night spots, street life. People made fires on the pavements. One man said he slept in a nearby derelict building, along with many others, for a small fee.

Most people were willing to talk. The questions were simple – how long have you been on the street, why are you here, have you ever used social services, do you need help? It’s gritty out there and circumstances are brutal.

After 11pm, 200 tired people returned from various points across the CBD to the command centre for a debriefing and to hand over their data.

“The biggest success of this pilot PITC is that we did it through collective effort,” says Dean Weil, head of the Jozi My Jozi social workstream. “The mandate to end the problem doesn’t rest with one entity – it involves the police, the City, social services, communities, day centres, shelters, churches. What we have now is on-the-ground information, where the hotspots are, and why people are on the streets.”

Read more: Down and out in Johannesburg: Understanding homelessness

What is emerging is that there are more than 1,000 people homeless in the CBD, with not enough shelters available anywhere in the city. Homelessness is a complex issue, says Weil, with many socioeconomic issues colliding. There are unemployed young people, displaced families, individuals battling substance abuse or mental health issues.

Weil says the aim is to reduce homelessness by 30% by 2030. This will involve a phased approach that creates safe spaces and expands shelters, strengthens data use and enforces bylaws with compassion. 

It’s also hard to count homeless people, he adds, because they move around a lot. At night, while some are visibly sleeping in shop doorways or on grass verges, others hide themselves in bushes, alleyways and even tucked into storm drains. Informal settlements, abandoned buildings and makeshift shelters in parks and under bridges serve as temporary homes for many. Some people live in derelict buildings, others in garages or under plastic covers, in boxes.

Each case is different, agrees Jon Hopkins from U-turn Homeless Ministries. Different categories require different responses.

Read more: Below the bridge: Soweto’s homeless share their stories of struggle and hope

“The drive to end homelessness is so broad and complex. It’s not just a lack of accommodation. It’s broken social support associated with drugs, mental illness. We are trying to understand why people started living on the streets, where they came from, how long they’ve been there, how you enable people to interact with the available services.

“There are individual pathways in and out of homelessness and, yes, change is possible. People who have been on the streets for years are in stuck mode – they’re surviving, looking for their next meal, next hit, next handout. When they’re willing to change, we have been able to get them into a day centre or safe space, which is temporary, then help them with rehabilitation, into accommodation and then through a work readiness programme,” Hopkins says.

“There’s enormous trauma to deal with. It can take as long as two years from sleeping on the streets until independence, and those who make it this far have an 80% success rate. We try to walk the whole journey with them.”

“The next step for Jozi My Jozi and partners,” says Weil, “is to work towards reopening closed shelters and renovating existing ones. We will help in upgrading three shelters run by Mould Empower Serve – Lufononi, Ekhaya and Ekuthuleni.” The City-owned 3 Kotze Street in Hillbrow remains a problem since it’s been renovated – it has no operational budget so is effectively closed.

“We are looking at creative ways to open safe spaces to sleep at night, access to social services, meals, ablutions and open pathways to long-term support. We are also looking at utilising containerised solutions in areas that are vacant throughout the city.”

Along with the PITC, Jozi My Jozi is also developing a homeless dashboard and database, which will collate the information from the count. It will set up a citywide database that tracks homeless individuals and offers structured support. It also hopes to introduce MiChange, a voucher system that will work on physical or digital vouchers rather than cash, changing the narrative from compassionate to responsible giving. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.