Tabla de contenidos para Issue 311 2022 en The Big Issue

My name is Bronwyn Jones Carver. I have been homeless for seven years this June. At the time, Portland was just starting to experience the landlord greed machine as they raised rents by ridiculous amounts. I was no exception to this. My two-bedroom apartment in inner southeast Portland – where I had lived for 15 years, raised a family, buried pets and planted flowers – became a casualty of said greed. I paid $850 a month, and the landlord’s son wanted to raise it to $1 625 [about R28 100 at the time of printing]. The increase was not acceptable, let alone affordable. I worked a job I would soon leave due to the burden of high stress. My husband was not employed at the time. I agonized over the…

A small city in southern Brasil has found a way to attract more homeless people to one of its shelters on chilly winter nights: they now also take in people’s pets. Canoas, a city with an estimated population of 348 000 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, came to the realisation that many people living on the streets avoided staying at the city’s 14 shelters during the current southern hemisphere winter, because their pets were not welcome, says the city’s animal welfare special secretary, Fabiane Tomazi Borba. “Many times, they prefer not to stay in a shelter, so as not to abandon their pets,” the animal care specialist explains. Homeless people and their pets can now sleep under a roof and find shelter from the low temperatures at…

PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY ON WWW.GROUNDUP.CO.ZA Cape Town recently welcomed South Africa’s first ‘wash bus’ for the homeless, Nina Manzi. The colourful bus has four hot water showers and four toilets divided for male and female use. There is a 15-minute limit per person and users are given soap, a towel, a face cloth and skin cream The project is a collaboration between Viva Con Agua, U-Turn and Baz-Art. Although mobile, the bus requires connections to water, sewage and electricity. Sisanda Henda, who works for Viva Con Agua and is the Project Manager of Nina Manzi, said they wanted to find a way to assist people living on the streets. When they launched the pilot project in July, she says one user hadn’t washed in two months. “Getting a shower was part…

After surviving World War II, Maria Nikolaevna lived a busy and fulfilling life, raising two children, working as an engineer in the Soviet aerospace industry and cultivating a beautiful garden at the family home in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. As she grew old and her husband, Vasilii Emelianovich, died, her horizons narrowed to the confines of her second-floor apartment, with only the view from her window of children playing on the swings and visits from her daughter who lived nearby. When war returned this year and bombs struck her building after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Maria’s world shrank further – to the confines of a basement across the city. For the past four months, 92-year-old Maria has lived underground with her daughter, son-in-law, and the family cat. She gets…

→LIGHTS, CAMERA, DINNER! Sandton’s Eclipse Restaurant, on the 5th floor of Hotel Sky, is hosting the immersive Warrior Moon dinner show, a mythical musical filled with magical characters, drumming, choreographed fight scenes and extravagant dance, aerial acrobatics and more. The dinner menu is created by chef Ken Phuduhudu – previously of The Test Kitchen, The Greenhouse, Terroir and Glenda’s – paired with cocktails from Eclipse Restaurant’s celebrated mixologist. The hotel is known for its awe-inspiring and unusual interior design and birds-eye views of the Sandton skyline. Whimsical, theatrical dining in a wonderful setting awaits. Live: Wednesdays to Saturdays 6:30pm for 7pm Tickets: R895 per person (includes a welcome drink, a three-course set menu and entertainment). Booking is essential, call 010 880 4449 or email info@hotelsky.co.za www.hotelsky.co.za Gauteng YOUTH GO CLASSICAL…

CROSSWORD Across 7. Severe food shortage (6) 8. Movable image that represents a person in cyberspace (6) 9. Require or want (4) 10. Electric fencing, alarms or burglar bars (8) 11. Legendary bloodsucker such as Dracula (7) 13. Humped desert mammal (5) 15. Building occupied by monks or nuns (5) 17. Small, slender antelope (7) 20. Friendly and considerate (8) 21. Mark of authenticity (4) 22. Take something away (6) 23. When daylight fades (6) Down 1. Photographer’s device (6) 2. Current of air (4) 3. Time away from work (7) 4. Move to the music (5) 5. The union of a couple (8) 6. Royal home (6) 12. Carnivorous animal (8) 14. A product of the imagination (7) 16. Projectile fired from a rifle (6) 18. Chief, captain or…

The number of people sleeping on the streets climbed to an estimated 226 000 in 2020, a rise of more than 50 000 in five years, states the US Department for Housing and Urban Development. In response, some cities are setting up legally authorised, ‘sanctioned’ encampments, with supporters saying they are safer than the streets, and critics saying they are part of a broader push to criminalise homelessness. As Covid-19 swept across the United States, 63-year-old Elisheyah Denise McKinley lost her home in Phoenix, Arizona – and was told her only option was to put up a tent in a parking lot. The camp allowed people to pitch tents on two car parks with access to washing areas and toilets, but had few other facilities and became searingly hot as…

Nestled between pine and eucalyptus trees in the Elgin Valley near Grabouw is a community of several thousand people who call this area now known as Knoflokskraal, home. In November 2020, seven people occupied the land to establish a self-sustaining “sovereign Khoisan community”. Since then, the occupation of rural farm land has grown. “If you can have Orania, then you can also have Knoflokskraal,” says community leader Richard Isaacs. (Orania is a de facto white Afrikaner-only town in the Northern Cape.) Households at Knoflokskraal have large plots and are spread across 1 800ha. Most of the brightly-coloured homes are informal structures made of wood, zinc sheets and other material. There is no electricity or running water. The entrance to one area within the settlement has a sign that reads: ‘Khoimunity’.…

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY HOUSING (COMMONLY KNOWN AS RDP HOUSES) These are houses that have been built by the government and are given to low-income families. Government subsidy houses are owned, not rented, by beneficiaries. To qualify for an RDP house, you must meet the National Housing Subsidy Scheme criteria. This means you must be: ● A South African citizen ● Over 21 and mentally competent to sign a contract ● Married or living with a partner, or single and have dependants (single military veterans or aged people without dependants also qualify) ● Earn less than R3 500 per month per household (so if two people in your family earn and these earnings amount to more than R3 500 per month, you will not qualify) ● A first-time government subsidy recipient ●…

Artworks on this page are FOR SALE. Email info@bigissue.co.za to purchase artwork or to donate art supplies to a vendor. Elsie Ntini - A flower Solomon Masoso - Awesome times Xoliswa Ntunta - Winter table Samuel Jama - Birds in the desert Lizo Qatase - Big summer umbrellas Thandile Mbuyazwe - Winter mountains “Be aware of what season you are in and give yourself the grace to be there.”– KRISTEN DALTON…