Transitional Housing Learning Tour

“People need permanency to fix their lives…housing and social development only work when we work together. You can’t do one without the other!”

Given the recent announcements and focus on the homelessness, DAG sees transitional housing facilities linked to social development processes as a potential long-term solution (read DAG statement). On Tuesday, 08 June, DAG hosted an exciting Transitional Housing Learning Tour. The learning tour saw around 15 participants from various community organisations and the City of Cape Town officials coming together to engage in developmental opportunities and gaps in the Cape Town transitional homes/facilities. The session focused on visiting supportive housing and psychosocial support programmes. We targeted this horizontal learning to share strategies to improve operational, livelihood, and social development within transitional housing facilities. The information sharing can assist the current facilities in identifying blockages and help the community organisations navigate this effectively.

During the tour, participants visited a garden project that is run by Streetscapes, an organisation based in Zonnebloem which supports homeless people with substance addiction and rehabilitative programmes. One beneficiary of the programme shared his experiences and highlighted the need for more of such programmes, saying that such the programme is good as it helps people transition and gives a sense of belonging and control. After the garden project, the group visited Chester road, house, one home that is managed by Streetscapes where some beneficiaries discussed their journeys in the house from the start until today–sharing around what being in the facility means to them. All the other residents from the Pickwick Transitional Facility in Woodstock and U-Turn, Church House in Kenilworth, echoed similar sentiments as the Streetscape residents.

The day ended with all participants expressing their gratitude to DAG for organising the learning tour. As a concluding remark, one participant shared their sentiments regarding the tour, saying “We had exciting and informative engagements, and we got the opportunity to share, discuss and ask questions around housing and social development as well as ask questions around what we could do or what could do by the city, private sector and the civil society and activists to improve or start collectively organising and put pressure on the on the powers that be to urgently address the housing and psycho-social issues in our communities”

See how the day went in pictures…

Visit to Streetscapes garden project