A new year rings in new opportunities, new approaches, new challenges and new ideas. Join me in welcoming whatever we allow ourselves to become, with whatever it is that 2023 provides us with to work with.
Our ultimate experience of 2023, and any other year for that matter, will be what we do with what we are dealt with.
So take 2023 and give it your all, especially when it comes to promoting inclusivity, community, neighbourliness, friendship, love and caring among all.
We owe it to ourselves to unconditionally love and be loved.
I am starting off my columns for 2023 with a comment on an article that was written by a colleague of mine, Nomzamo Yuku.
It is about the theft of artwork created by Sea Point street vendor and artist Patience Mbuena, who also happens to reside at the notorious Tent City in the area.
The theft took place at approximately 8pm on December 23. He had left the first batch of his artwork in a bag outside the entrance of business premises that had been willing to keep his artwork safe overnight.
He had worked late and the business had already closed by the time he arrived to store his artwork, but the shop assistant was on the way to open up for him when the theft occurred.
He, in the meantime, had walked the short distance to where he sells his artworks and where the balance of his artwork still lay.
Some in Sea Point have said that he had been “careless and this was his just reward” and I agree that it might seem that way.
But those same critics do not say the same thing about a resident of Sea Point that leaves his laptop and phone charging in his car and leaves the car unlocked while he “quickly runs into the apartment to switch on the alarm”.
At least he had a good reason for doing what he did. The rest of his artwork was even more exposed to the elements than those left behind.
When residents in Sea Point speak about crime in their suburb, especially opportunistic crime, there is always a loud noise made by a certain group of those residents, who will almost immediately and without fail, lay the blame on those living on the streets of Sea Point in general.
And over the past year and a half, these rantings have almost exclusively focused on those staying in the enclosed area known as Tent City. This despite the fact that police statistics don’t bear this assumption out as fact.
In a number of columns that I have written for the Cape Argus, I have referred to the fact that most homeless people are in actual fact just as concerned, if not more so, about criminals in the area, than their homed neighbours, and often themselves victim of these opportunistic thieves.
After all, homed neighbours have the protection of high walls, fences, security companies, security staff and security equipment, whereas those living on the streets are completely exposed to the elements. Be they natural, unnatural or human.
And just because the homed feel that their possessions are worth a great deal more than the “scavengings” of those living on the streets, the value of possessions are relative to one’s situation, and so I take offence to such arguments.
Patience had been working on his artwork into the wee hours of the mornings to complete it for the tourist season – and no, it was not stolen at Tent City and no, he is not happy to be living on the streets (“and so, has himself to blame for his loss”, as some people have presumed in their social media comments).
In actual fact, he is someone who, when he makes money from selling his artworks, tries to find cheap room options to rent which may be available to people such as himself.
These options, however, are in short supply and definitely non-existent in or near his preferred place of business, which happens to be Sea Point. The sales of his art have allowed him to recently temporarily rent a room in the CBD.
Now, having fallen victim to crime, he might have to return to the streets until he’s sustainable again.
And that is what these same residents don’t seem to get, the impact of a theft on a person living on the streets can mean the difference between having a dignified roof over their head and being back on the streets, exposed to more danger than their own exposure.
Somehow not much has been said about this incident by the same individuals and groups that post about the smallest incident that they most of the time falsely attribute to those living on the streets and at Tent City, especially.
I wish that for once they would see that a criminal is a criminal, whether he is homed or not, and should be defined as such rather than attribute that particular label of “criminals” to each and every individual that sadly has no other choice but to live on the streets.
There are plenty in that predicament through no fault of their own, but because we as a society have not cared enough to prevent it from happening when the signs were there – or worse still, we have through our own prejudices and exclusivity put them there. Stop wearing blinkers!
People living on the streets are individuals with their own individual journeys that brought them there and whom we have to get to know in order for us to provide them with the individual assistance they require to get off and stay off the streets.
In this process, we will find out who the individuals are that want to remain doing crime and use the sensible decision by those living on the streets to stay on the streets and form communities for their own safety, rather than accept the temporary, ridiculously impersonal, one-size-fits all alternatives we currently spend millions on offering.
Patience Mbuena is one of those individuals for whom, for many reasons, shelters and the current entry phase Safe spaces, do not offer a viable alternative.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stop on 0860 01 111 or Patience Mbueno at 061 425 6383.
If you would like to help individuals like Patience off the street for good, please visit: https://www.backabuddy.co.za/carlos-mesquita
* Carlos Mesquita.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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