Homeless in Tshwane protected from further ‘clean-up’ operations

A group of homeless people were on Wednesday granted a reprieve from the City of Tshwane’s “clean-up operations” which left them without their belongings.

On March 7‚ officials from the city’s waste management and the metro police departments went to Prince’s Park in the city centre and confiscated the personal property of the 24 occupiers of the park.

They did so in the guise of a “clean-up” operation.

The occupiers lost valuable items including ID books and cards‚ cell phones‚ clothing and other personal belongings‚ including blankets.

The occupiers were not given a chance to salvage any of their belongings.

Instead the occupiers were told that if they wanted to retrieve their personal belongings‚ they must go to the dumping site in Rosslyn‚ north of Pretoria.

The city officials did the same at Burgers Park Lane in the city on the same day.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)‚ which represents the occupiers‚ wrote to the city manager‚ Moeketsi Mosola‚ and mayor Solly Msimanga to try to resolve the matter‚ without success.

The LHR helped the occupiers launch an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court to interdict all clean-up operations by the city.

When the matter was due to be argued in court on Wednesday‚ Mosola filed an affidavit admitting that the municipality’s officials did remove the people’s property.

He then offered payment for “emergency relief in distress” for what he referred to as the “distress caused” to the occupiers. This amounts to R1‚500 per person.

Mosola said any and all further “clean-up” operations within the city would be conducted in accordance with the law and that the city would communicate with LHR when they intended to conduct any such operation.

This undertaking was made an order of court on Wednesday.

“This means that from today onwards the city will no longer confiscate any person’s property in terms of its ‘clean-up’ operation without first informing LHR‚” LHR attorney Hlengiwe Mtshatsha said.

She said LHR was pleased with the outcome as many poor homeless people were constantly harassed by municipalities under the guise of “clean-up operations”.

Despite the Tshwane victory‚ LHR is appealing against a Johannesburg High Court order which dismissed an application by 28 occupiers of a traffic island in Johannesburg whose belongings were confiscated and discarded in a “clean-up’ operation.

The matter is due to be heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal later this year.

In a headnote to his judgment in March last year‚ Judge Roland Sutherland said the application by the occupiers to compel the city to return the goods had to fail on certain grounds.

One of the grounds was that the belongings alleged to have been removed were not adequately described to properly form the content of an enforceable court order. Another was that the goods were discarded and therefore irretrievable.