Far from being shiftless, feckless ne’er-do-wells, homeless people are incredibly industrious, Cape Argus deputy news editor Lance Witten and chief photographer Henk Kruger found while working on #TheDignityProject.

Cape Town – Skarrel, hustle, mine – these are some of the words the homeless use to describe the daily struggle. When Capetonians talk about the daily grind, it doesn’t come close to what the homeless in the city have to go through.

Far from being shiftless, feckless ne’er-do-wells, homeless people are incredibly industrious. The Cape Argus spent many weeks talking to the homeless of Cape Town, some of whom are involved in Project Khulisa, which is an NGO-driven initiative that gives them at least some means of providing for themselves with a R50 daily stipend paid out at the end of every month.

Also read: What is #TheDignityProject?

The project requires them to report for duty, either for garden duty in the vegetable and herb patches dotted around the city or for expanded public works initiatives, at 6am and keeps them busy until 4pm.

Workshops to build self-esteem and improve skills are held from 2pm daily.

Many spoke to the Cape Argus on condition of anonymity, embarrassed their families might find out about their situation, or fearful of the consequences of revealing their sometimes criminal activity.

John says his day begins at 4am, “before the cops come to wake you up”.

“You don’t want the cops to find you first,” he said.

“Sometimes they wake you up with baton and boot. They’ll take your stuff if you’re not careful.”

Read more: ‘I’m just like you… but I’m homeless’

John then finds somewhere to hide his belongings before going about his day.

If he doesn’t hide them well, other homeless people might steal them, or law enforcement officers may destroy them. He then finds somewhere to get cleaned up.

“This is a pleasure in summer, but in winter, imagine getting ice-cold water from a fire hydrant when it’s still dark outside?”

Then, the “skarrel” begins.

“The ‘skarrel’ is everything. It’s from looking for food and knowing where to go, trawling through trash cans for valuables or recyclables, going to where you know shops have packaging that you can pick up and take somewhere for a little something.”

Gideon told the Cape Argus he would earn about R25 a day from taking between five and 10 loads of cardboard to the scrapyard.

Homeless person Danny Oosthuizen writes for the Cape Argus. Read his article here

“Now, it’s ‘no thanks, not for me today’. Then you must walk across town with this 50kg load (of cardboard) on your back.

“And don’t let the cardboard be wet. Then you get nothing.”

“Some people beg,” said André, who had spent the past 15 years on the street.

“But there it is not like there’s any dignity in that. I want to work for my kroon (money).”

Some homeless people prefer to keep to themselves. “But for most of us,” said Danny, “we are like a family.

“We are innovative people,” he said.

“And there’s a lot of love on the street.

“You won’t believe how tough these people are. I sleep on the cold, hard ground and when it rains, I don’t sleep. I can’t.”

That, said Danny, was also part of the skarrel.

“Finding shelter, a place to sleep for the night, safe from rats, from cops, from skelms who want to take your stuff. That’s all part of it. I call it ‘mining’. Because you’re digging to eke out a living for yourself.”

Sometimes, prostitution is your only option.

“I used to sell my body,” one woman told the Cape Argus.

“It’s not easy,” she said through tears, “but in the first years, it was very bad. I didn’t know how to get by. So I had to.

“All you can do is think about your child that you must provide for.

“That’s why I decided ‘okay, this is okay for me to do’. There’s no other justification other than desperation.”

She would go for days without food so her young child could eat.

Years later, after befriending other homeless people, her situation began to improve.

“It is like hunting in packs. One gets the cans, one gets the cardboard, one gets the old newspapers, one skarrels for food, and somebody watches the children. We are a family. We look out for each other.”

Another woman, Merle, said drug abuse was often rife on the streets.

“What else can you do? Otherwise you’ll just become so depressed.

“You people, when you have a little extra geld (money), what do you do? You go watch a lekker movie, you go have a burger, you go for a milkshake… We know it’s wrong, but what else can you do? You buy a R5 ‘stop’ (of dagga), or some unga. And that helps relieve the pain of your surroundings,” she said.

“Sometimes you will find some people sleeping on the street during the day. It’s because they’ve been up all night, or for a few nights, because you’re scared,” said Zamuxolo. “It’s not nice to sleep on the streets. But during the day, at least it is a little safer to close your eyes even just for a few hours.

“We are not lazy,” he said.

Danny said from 4pm, one needs to secure a place to bed down for the night.

“The tannies up in the Bo-Kaap are very nice. It’s a nice community there. They will tolerate you being there.”

Sometimes, some homeless people carry their belongings with them in the early evenings while going to various places where they can get a hot meal.

André said: “There are places where you can get food, or a cup of soup and a slice of bread. Just something to keep you going through the night.

“You can’t at 7pm or 8pm at night go skarrel for your things. By then, the cops have found your stuff and it’s gone. Or somebody else has taken it. So, we carry it around.

“We’re always on the skarrel.”

Cape Argus