Bowls Half Full

Bustling streets, a booming centre of tourism, and vibrant green spaces. Is this describing the South of France? Italy? California? Nope! 

Sandwiched between looming mountains and the rolling coastline of the South Atlantic, sits Cape Town, South Africa. The jewel hanging low around Africa’s neck. Known for its rapidly growing tourism sector, urban developments, and one of the worst epidemics of addiction, homelessness and housing scarcity in the continent. You could say Cape Town is like a caterpillar growing into a beautiful butterfly. That is, as long as the caterpillar could find a cocoon that wasn't already being rented.

Despite the recent economic investments in Cape Town, and the spike in popularity for tourists, the reality for people born and raised in Cape Town is a very different story. As the growth in the economy is a new development for the South African city, a huge proportion of the population is still struggling day in and day out to survive and maintain a sustainable life. It is for this reason that grassroots community aid, such as Obs Can Feed You, a community kitchen operating each weekend in Observatory, Cape Town, is so important. 

Established in 2020, Obs Can Feed You is one of the founding groups in the Obs Journey, a collective of restaurants and organisations that provide free, volunteer-cooked meals for the unhoused and those in need. Their mission is simple. “Serving with dignity - friendly faces, full bowls, no questions asked”.

Mutoni Kaitakirwa, support member and longest standing volunteer for Obs Can Feed You, said “unfortunately, the nature of homelessness in Cape Town is that people are homeless for so many different reasons and sometimes it is unfortunately a choice.

“We come not to judge the reason why this person is in their situation, but to just say we want to make sure that you have a meal to eat.”

The goal of Obs Can Feed You isn’t to set people up with housing or a job (although they will direct people to social workers who can), it is to give the most vulnerable members of the community a regular, filling meal, without prejudice.

Without being registered as a charity, Obs Can Feed You can work without regulation, an important part of their standing as a grassroots group. They are unburdened by government regulations, and are managed by the volunteers that cook and serve the food each week. 

“We get to represent what we want to represent and only do what we want to do and not be dictated by donors or some sort of mandate. And we can keep changing as we go along.”

As Cape Town continues to be listed under headlines like “Top 10 Destinations Your Friends Haven't Been To” and “Think You’ve Seen Gorgeous Coastlines? Not Like This!”, the wealth divide between the cities most vulnerable and the residents of virulent wealthy neighbourhoods has only grown. 

Mutoni highlighted that they can't ignore the fact that there is “a real serious housing crisis in Cape Town.

“I mean, it's all over the world, but in Cape Town, it's just particularly bad. Landlords would rather choose a foreign guest over a local one because the foreign guest will have no issue paying.”

With Cape Town holding 11.9% of unhoused people in South Africa, the strain on housing and job security can be massive. 

Although the demand for housing in a developing city would seem like an issue on its way to being fixed, the influx of people from foreign countries moving to wealthy neighbourhoods in Cape Town puts pressure on the housing sector, making it more and more difficult for the unhoused population to find a stable place to live.

Cape Town is suffering from a long-standing wealth divide that is only growing with outside investment and immigration , with the top 10% of the population owning 86% of wealth.  

Now, you can't talk about South Africa without bringing up Nelson Mandela, the beloved prisoner turned president fighting for a desegregated ‘rainbow nation’ in the long cast shadow of apartheid. 

Following his release from prison in 1990, South Africa saw a period of dense collective optimism. South Africa became a beacon for change in the hands of the people born there. And with the buzz, came all the people who wanted to make their mark on the desegregated nation, flooding in from all over Africa and beyond.

With the sudden influx of visitors staying for longer and longer periods, cities like Cape Town felt their population surge with out-of-towners. This period was the catalyst for problems Cape Town is still facing today: too many feet and not enough shoes.

Mutoni, who is a property agent in Cape Town, said: “Even now in the shelter space, there's just not enough shelter beds for the number of people that are actually homeless. 

“We just can't accommodate everyone. It's all supply and demand at the end of the day.”

Cape Town's housing prices have increased by 38% over the past six years. The average home price in the city is about £150,000. In Clifton, one of the city’s most exclusive beach communities, the average home costs around £1.8 million. However, the silent killer for a majority of people being squeezed to the sidelines of the city they have always called home is the dreaded short-term rentals. 

70 percent of the downtown residential housing stock is dedicated to hotel rooms or short-term rentals, chewing up and spitting back out a constant flow of tourists and fleeting visitors like an insatiable animal. These properties are  not controlled and maintained by the people walking the streets of their city each day, ruled instead by Airbnb. 

It is for these reasons that moving from always being on the back foot to a place of stability might as well be a mythic feat for unhoused and low-income people. When you can’t afford to eat, affording rent feels like an impossibility. 

If you can't afford to live in the city centre, you can't keep a good job. If you can't keep a good job, you can't make money, and if you can't make money, you will never afford to live anywhere close to the new hubs of development and business swelling up in the heart of the city. 

It is a harsh cycle that has been spinning for decades and doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Although if Cape Town knows one thing, it's how to love their neighbours. Obs Can Feed You alone feeds between 70 and 110 per service. Twice a week, every week, for the last six years. 

It’s thanks to the tireless work by Mutoni and her collaborators and volunteers that, despite the pressure and instability felt in the lives of thousands of people across the city, there is always a steaming bowl, a small plastic chair, and a warm smile waiting for the people who need it most.

You can learn more and donate to Obs Can Feed You here: https://obscanfeedyou.co.za/obs-can-feed-you-2/