Homeless told to 'go home' as City of Joburg clears the streets for G20 summit

Clusters of Johannesburg’s homeless stood along the shops opposite the Wanderers taxi rank in the inner-city on Thursday afternoon, 13 November, clutching the few belongings they could salvage.

Earlier on Thursday, the City of Johannesburg started removing homeless encampments from around Constitutional Hill ahead of the G20 Summit next weekend, 22-23 November. City officials and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) arrived with construction vehicles, and workers loaded the belongings of those who sleep on the streets into trucks.

They wondered if this was a makeover or move-out notice. 

“I don’t know where I will go, but I was told by the police and the people who were removing us to go home,” Tebello Molete from Sebokeng said.

“But I cannot go home. I wouldn’t be here if I had a safe and warm home.”

Daily Maverick heard JMPD officers asking where people were from and then telling them to “go home”.

The City cleared the homeless encampment without a plan. Joburg’s homeless population far exceeds the number of beds in the City’s shelters.

Daily Maverick asked Mayor Dada Morero whether the clean-up campaign included plans to relocate the homeless. 

“We are still engaged in talks regarding homeless people in the city. We must find a better way of how we better manage homelessness in our city,” he said. 

Group Corporate and Shared Services MMC Sithembiso Zungu said: “That one we are still busy with, and it has been one of the issues in the agenda in our meetings.”

Life on the streets

In Johannesburg, homelessness is said to be driven mainly by economic exclusion, rising unemployment, accelerated urbanisation and deepening inequality.

People are drawn to Johannesburg by the promise of opportunity, but many find themselves priced out of survival.

In June, the City expressed concern over soaring figures of the homeless. Faced with a shortage of temporary housing, the City admitted that it cannot meet its legal obligation to shelter those it seeks to remove.

It’s unclear whether the City will remove homeless people from other areas in the inner-city, but those sleeping rough across the CBD described their struggle in finding access to shelters and rehabilitation facilities.

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

“We do not have much privacy in the streets, even when you want to bathe, or do your washing, it becomes impossible,” said Lebohang Mona (40), from Senoane in Soweto.

The father of three, who lives near Noord taxi rank, said he was tired of living on the streets, which have been his home for 15 years. He blamed drug addiction for his current situation.

“I would be happy to be in a shelter, but even happier to access a rehab centre,” he said.

Sylvia Montsoe (57), who said she was from Lesotho, sleeps in a passage near Noord. 

“I have been living in the streets of Johannesburg for five years and I sleep here in this passage.”

“I hear that there are shelters… I would be satisfied if I were to be taken to a shelter,” Montsoe said.

“I believe that the authorities will find us a place to stay. I have tried everything, including speaking to social workers in the CBD about a place to stay.”

Two shelters for thousands of homeless

The City has only two working homeless shelters: the Windsor West Shelter, which can take up to 60 people, and the 1 Dan Street Shelter in Florida, which also takes 60 people.

The City’s biggest shelter, the 300-bed Kotze Street facility, opposite Constitutional Hill, was closed in 2023. There are a number of other shelters across the city led by NGOs.

The 2022 Census reported 8,692 homeless individuals in Johannesburg. Other estimates put the figure between 15,000 and 20,000 across the municipality. 

A Jozi My Jozi count this year found there were 2,100 people experiencing homelessness across the CBD, Hillbrow, Linden and surrounding corridors.

Read more: Over 200 volunteers unite for Joburg’s groundbreaking homelessness point-in-time count

Mary Gillet-de Klerk, who leads the Johannesburg Organisation of Services to the Homeless (Josh), said: “For the City to clean just to provide a glossy version for G20 is actually crazy. We need to have lasting solutions.”

The City also moved homeless people during the FIFA 2010 World Cup without a proper plan. 

“It was hastily written,” Gillet-de Klerk said, “If I remember correctly, at the time, there wasn’t a single shelter in Johannesburg which was run by the City.”

Gillet-de Klerk wondered how many of the G20 delegates would actually be taken around the city (although Constitutional Hill could be an attraction for G20 delegates).

A long-time advocate for homeless people in the city, Gillet-de Klerk said a chain of services is required to address homelessness.

“We need a coordinated approach,” she said.

“You need organisations doing outreaches, drop-in and daily centres where the homeless can shower and wash their clothes and access a social worker. Then they need to be able to access overnight safe spaces.”

“The notion that they could just go to a skills centre or shelter for a three-month period is old-school thinking,” Gillet-de Klerk said.

She said any kind of help for the homeless should be tied to an assessment of how they progress.

Read more: Homeless — Not nearly enough shelters in Johannesburg to address the plight of many thousands

‘They keep coming back’

“There is nothing much that is happening regarding the homeless,” said Ward 67 councillor David Mothapo Modupi, whose ward covers Yeoville. 

“Reason being that we have tried to allocate them to shelters but they keep on coming back.”

Modupi said there were also efforts to reunite the homeless with their families, but after various efforts had failed, the City was at the point where it had “given up”.

“There have been efforts made by the department of social development to return them back to their homes, because most of them have homes,” Modupi said.

“The issue of the homeless is a challenge across the country and I don’t know how it can be dealt with,” Modupi told Daily Maverick on Thursday afternoon. DM