Zuko Komisa
The Gauteng Department of Social Development, Agriculture, Rural Development, and Environment has introduced mobile shower services.
The programs, according to MEC Mbali Hlophe, are intended to help those who are homeless in the province regain their dignity. The mobile shower services will travel to places where there are homeless individuals.
#iCrushNoLova #RestoringDignity #Homelessnothopeless #GGT2030 pic.twitter.com/3ClcKZJ4fR
— Social DevelopmentGP (@gpgSocDev) April 19, 2024
The launch is “an expansion to an already existing package of assistance to the homeless” in the province, according to the department.
“It’s about giving them warm food and a shower. It’s also about ensuring that our social workers have access to them and they are able to direct them to the broader services that we have. That’s about family reunification, which is really an ideal one because we want to make sure that we are able to unify families.
“But where we can’t, we are able to place them within our shelters where they are provided with skills to make sure that they are able to take care of themselves and to be sustainably out of the streets,”
“The service, which will go out to locations daily, will provide access to bathrooms, ablution facilities, laundry services and linking the homeless with other services such as access to shelters and social work interventions. The wash trailer and office will be towed by a vehicle to the identified homeless hot spots. The proposed locations for the service are parks, open areas, under bridges, and on streets where the homeless community sometimes reside.
“The mobile services have separated showers and ablution facilities and an office. The wash trailer, which is 6m long, with an estimated weight of 2 800 kilograms, has three showers and three toilets, and the estimated office weight is 1 800kg,” the department said.
READ NEXT: City of JHB cuts debt downpayment to 10% for cashstrapped households
