U-turn outlines its efforts to beat homelessness
U-turn, a non-profit organisation that helps the homeless, saw a 53% increase in the number of street people approaching it for help in 2022.
This is according to the organisation’s CEO, Jean-Ray Knighton Fitt, who delved into its annual report during a business breakfast with donors and other supporters of its efforts, at a Mowbray hotel, on Thursday May 11.
U-turn’s engagements with street people had also been 83% higher in 2022 than the previous year, he said.
“We significantly expanded our capacity by adding two service centres, two transitional houses, two personal development hubs, five shops, a construction company and nursery. The result was a huge upsurge in numbers of people entering and graduating from our programme - each one transformed, independent, and taking responsibility for themselves, and their families.”
During 2022, according to Mr Knighton Fitt, U-turn opened service centres in Fish Hoek and Parow; launched a mobile service centre that runs out of a double-decker bus; rolled out the Nina Manzi Wash Bus, a trailer with showers for the homeless; doubled its work-readiness capacity from 60 to 125 spaces; opened two new personal development sites in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg; acquired a construction company, Buildback; and started Living Roots an indigenous-plant nursery.
They also provided computer training and opened two new transitional homes taking the total number to three and increasing the number of transitional beds available from 12 to 40.
Among its objectives for the year ahead, U-turn plans to open two new services centres in Cape Town and two in Johannesburg; launch an online jobs board; open another transitional home; support residents with spare rooms to accommodate the homeless; and open a secondary-care outpatient programme, in partnership with Project Exodus, in Kalk Bay.
Mr Knighton Fitt said there was no doubt that U-turn was making a significant dent in the problem of homelessness in Cape Town.
“I’m grateful to our staff, donors, volunteers and partners whose diligence and passion enables so much flourishing; and to God, our father, whose provision and guidance keeps us sustained and growing each day.”
Jonathan Hopkins, U-turn’s chief business development officer, said an effective crisis-response system would help to identify those who were homeless or in danger of becoming homeless to put them in touch with the help they needed, including temporary shelter.
“It works because it aligns a community, its programmes and services around one common goal - to make homelessness rare and non-recurring. We also plan to launch a research department, which will focus on collecting and analysing data to produce informed statistics and research material around homelessness,” he said.
Sean Collard, director of the Face2Face community development programme, said the business breakfast was a good way to share ideas.
“These spaces are necessary for us because they don't only enforce collaborations in finding permanent solutions towards homelessness but we all witness lives transformed.”
