Treating the life-sustaining activities of street-based people as a criminal nuisance, in the manner that the City of Cape Town's by-laws do, will perpetuate the stereotype that all people experiencing homelessness are criminals.

Western Cape High Court Judge Judith Cloete recently handed down judgment in the contentious matter between The Six building sectional title body corporate and the City of Cape Town relating to street-based people living in a vacant city-owned parking lot in District Six, Cape Town.

The essence of the dispute relates to the behaviour of street-based people, such as making fires, which allegedly amounts to criminal nuisance in contravention of several by-laws.

The body corporate's gripe is an understandable one. It claims that the right of the building's inhabitants to a healthy environment (protected in section 24 of the Constitution) is jeopardised by the city's failure to enforce its own by-laws in relation to street-based people's consumption of drugs; making open fires; screaming and shouting at all times of the day and night; public urination and defecation with the attendant foul odours; nudity and open sexual activity; abundant trash in overgrown grass and weeds; and harassment, assaults and intimidation of residents of the building.

The city was not able to put up a valid defence and Judge Cloete ordered it to curb "the criminal activities" on the site by enforcing the three by-laws in question (namely, the Environmental Health...