Cape Town - Two homeless settlements in the City have gone up in flames, destroying a number of structures, and at one site where an eviction took place, the occupants scrambled to save their already sparse belongings, while their structures were taken apart and removed.
The City’s fire and rescue spokesperson, Jermaine Carelse, said at around 10.15am on Thursday, the camera system detected informal structures burning just off Beach Road – the “Tent City” site at the Three Anchor Bay Tennis Club.
The fire broke out while police and law enforcement were on site to carry out the eviction.
“By 11.10am, firefighters had extinguished the fire which destroyed approximately 10 informal structures and left several persons destitute,” Carelse said. No injuries were reported.
The fire followed another that broke out at 6.45pm near the Castle of Good Hope on Wednesday.
Carelse said several makeshift structures on the corners of Castle and Strand Street were destroyed.
Musa Tops, 44, who has lived at the site for over two years, said they were unsure of the cause of the fire. However, there were rumours that it was deliberately started by someone throwing a lit object.
Another suspicion was that the fire started inside a structure.
Unathi Noyi has been staying at the site for five years.
“The City of Cape Town attempted to remove us way back but lawyers from Ndifuna Ukwazi intervened.
“But since this fire took place, the army wants to remove these structures because it’s their property,” Noyi said.
The SANDF could not confirm this on Thursday.
On December 12, the Western Cape High Court gave the green light for the eviction at the Three Anchor Bay Tennis Club in Green Point.
The ruling ordered that around 40 homeless people, as well as any others on the site, vacate the site together with all their goods by no later than January 31, 2024.
The sheriff of the court and police were also directed to demolish and/or remove any structures on the property, remove any possessions and/or building materials to be kept by the City for a period of one month.
Sea Point ward councillor Nicola Jowell said some homeless people were assisted, particularly over the past 10 days, to alternative accommodation.
Two options were the City’s Culemborg Safe Space and building kits on condition that the owner of the property would consent to the structure being erected.
“The City has spent three years offering alternative options to the people living here, dignified options to come off the street and start a process of long-term change, and unfortunately it has come to having to evict people off the site,” Jowell said.
“But we, at the end of the day, have to create law and order and have to restore the land for the purposes its intended (for). The offers of alternative accommodation are still ongoing.”
Jowell said the fire was started by occupants of the structure and it soon spread to surrounding structures.
A number of homeless people remained at the parking lot close to the Sea Point fire, unsure of where to go next. One homeless person, Muriel Baart, said: “Where are the places they promised us they’re going to put us in? We signed papers, put our names and surnames, we signed.
“They came again with the same thing, they let us sign again. Now they’re talking about shelters, but that wasn’t what we signed up for.”
Baart, who previously lived in a shelter in Paarl, said she would not return to one.
The items donated to shelter residents, carried inside from the donor’s car to the shelter by the very same shelter residents, never reached them and were instead taken by shelter staff, she said.
“You are treated like an animal… They don’t make it easy for us to like it to stay there.. They shout at you. That’s not a way to treat people if you want to help someone.”