State response to homelessness in South Africa: A multi-agency housing focused intervention approach considered

ABSTRACT

This paper articulates state response to homelessness through multi-agency intervention in South Africa. While it argues strongly on relativity of homelessness, it however agrees with previous authors on common constituents of the concept. Based on secondary sources this paper delves into what constitutes homelessness and why there has been homelessness in the country, due to one or a combination of structural and individual related drivers. It further explores the state’s use of a multi-agency housing focused approach that integrates appropriate legislations, social services interventions and public works, where over 3.3 million houses have been delivered in the country. While in-depth review of available data indicated significant increase in housing provision, the strategy is confronted with human, material, and rising need concerns. Importantly, there is no certainty yet on the extent to which the ‘street homeless’ and marginalised groups of the poor are served equally to other categories of the homeless.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• state
• multi-agency
• intervention
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the Division for Inclusive Social Development of UNDESA, New York for an opportunity provided to present a working version of this manuscript in an expert group meeting in 2019. This paper therefore draws substantial ideas from the discussion paper delivered by this author. The relevant links to the discussion paper and all the published secondary sources are available and included in the reference section.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration

Funding details: This work was not supported by any grant.

Disclosure statement: There are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Supplemental online material: There is no supplemental material to this manuscript.