Under the noses of MPs in fast cars ...

Agnes Kritzinger has lived on the street outside parliament for nearly a decade.

Like dozens of other homeless people on Cape Town's streets, she is concerned about being harassed ahead of the World Cup.

The homeless 83-year-old, whose family was forcibly removed from District Six under apartheid, has become a familiar face to passers-by.

She voted in the country's first democratic elections and has witnessed grand events at parliament addressed by Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and President Jacob Zuma.

"I've been here all these years. I even voted in the first elections. I've been sitting here since when Mandela was president. He was good. I love that man," she said.

"I sit across the street during the opening of parliament. I used to sleep here but now I've got all sorts of illnesses. I'm old now. I want to go into a home, an old age home or something where I can get a bed," she told the Sunday Times in an interview two weeks ago.

"(Police) say we are a nuisance because we are begging from people. We've got nothing, we are hungry and cold, we want blankets," she said.

"I know about the World Cup, that's why they are chasing us away. They do it in France, they do it in Italy, they do it everywhere. They are embarrassed by us. They are going to take us to Blikkiesdorp (a temporary housing settlement out of town). I've got six children. But they've got their own lives. I just can't go and live with them."

Pat Eddy, spokesman for the Cape Town Central City Improvement District Partnership - which works with homeless people - said field workers had been trying to help Kritzinger get off the street for more than 10 years.

Jane Jacobs, from Ceres, is another homeless person living outside parliament. She has a more benign view of the police: "We are safe here because of the police's presence. They also give us food."

But as for her immediate neighbours, she says: "MPs drive past in fast cars. They don't even look at us."