Organisations representing the LGBTQIA+ community in Cape Town are buckling under financial strain. Despite June marking International Pride Month, some organisations have little to celebrate due to a lack of funding.
The Triangle Project and Pride Shelter Trust said its services remain essential amid growing homophobia and discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people in the country.
“International Pride Month is an opportunity for ‘pink washing’. Organisations support LGBTQIA+ people for one month, but more funds must be available throughout the year,” said the director of the Triangle Project, Elsbeth Engelbrecht. We need to push against corporates and how absent they are.
She said the project, founded in the 1980s, provided clinical and nutritional services to people with chronic diseases as well as mental and psychological support.
The organisation’s spokesperson, Ling Sheperd, said it only had one month of funds left to provide food, medication and dignity packs to close to 500 people. Carol Lennon, a clinic and outreach nurse at the Triangle Project, said the demand for the organisation’s services was high, with people walking through the doors every day to seek urgent care. However, a lack of funding had forced the organisation to re-evaluate its criteria for the first time in eight years, to see which people they could help.
“There is a fear that we can’t help people,” said Lennon, adding that they had to turn away people at the door. Lennon said the grant supplied by the health department had dried up.
“[Triangle Project] is needed, particularly with the level of hate that people face. Just about every person that walks through our doors has faced some violence,” she said.
‘There is never space available’ Established in 2011, the Pride Shelter Trust, a non-profit organisation, was the first shelter for LGBTQIA+ people in Africa.
The shelter, which is a heritage site, provides 20 to 22 beds to homeless people for three months. The director, Nicole Joy Alexander, said the organisation aimed to protect the rights and mental health of LGBTQIA+ people.
Last year, the shelter attempted to raise R80 000 via the BackaBuddy platform for repairs and maintenance of the house. A little more than half of the target was raised, said Alexander. She said the City of Cape Town owned the house, but the organisation was responsible for repairs.
Source: news24
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