City of Cape Town to provide 200 additional beds to selected shelters for winter

CAPE TOWN - The City of Cape Town will provide 200 additional beds to selected shelters for this cold season as part of its winter preparedness programme. 

Eleven shelters that applied for assistance will receive support in the form of food parcels, toiletries, mattresses, and bedding. 

U-turn Homeless Ministries’ spokesperson Stephen Underwood said that shelters face severe challenges, especially during the colder months.

"So it's like that saying a summer body is built in winter, good shelter services for winter are made in summer, so I would say it's an all-year-round thing that members of the public should support NGOs who are providing shelter and also advocate for the provisions of more shelter. There's just enough shelter building and not enough spaces or options."

Underwood said that the gap between the number of people living on the streets and available shelter beds continued to widen.

"So we really need political will from local, national and provincial government, as well as businesses and members of the public, to make more shelters available for folk living on the street. There's more than 14,000 living on the streets, for example in Cape Town, and only between 2,000 and 3,000 shelter beds. So, there's just not enough facilities, neither in summer nor in winter, but it's particularly bad in winter.”