THERE was a time when the sight of a child begging at a traffic intersection shocked Zimbabweans.

Today, the tragedy has deepened.

Entire families now sleep on pavements, under bridges, at bus termini and in abandoned buildings.

Mothers cradle babies in the open while fathers search for odd jobs merely to survive another day.

This is no longer a social anomaly. It is a national emergency.

The debate in the Senate laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Zimbabwe’s homelessness crisis is growing, and government has failed to build the social safety nets needed to protect the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

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Homelessness does not happen overnight.

It is the culmination of years of economic decline, unemployment, unaffordable housing, family breakdown, inadequate mental health services, substance abuse and weak social protection systems.

When families find themselves sleeping on pavements, the failure is not theirs alone.

It is a failure of policy, planning and governance.

The tendency by authorities to conduct periodic clean-up operations merely shifts people from one street corner to another.

It creates the illusion of action without solving the underlying crisis.

Poverty cannot be swept away with police trucks.

It cannot be arrested. It cannot be legislated out of existence.

Zimbabwe once prided itself on strong community support systems, where extended families cared for vulnerable relatives.

Those structures have weakened under the pressure of prolonged economic hardship.

At precisely the moment when government should have stepped in to reinforce these collapsing social networks, welfare systems have become increasingly underfunded and overstretched.

The result is visible in every major city.

Children grow up without access to education.

Families lack clean water, sanitation and healthcare.

Those living on the streets become vulnerable to crime, exploitation, trafficking, substance abuse and preventable diseases.

The longer people remain homeless, the harder it becomes to reintegrate them into society.

This crisis requires far more than sympathy.

It demands a comprehensive national homelessness strategy involving the ministries responsible for Social Welfare, Health, Housing, Local Government, Education, Labour and Youth, working alongside local authorities, churches, civil society and the private sector.

Government must begin by conducting a nationwide census of homeless people.

It is impossible to solve a problem whose true scale remains unknown.

Reliable data should identify who is homeless, why they are homeless and what interventions are required for different groups, including children, women, the elderly, persons with disabilities and those living with mental illness.

The country also needs properly funded rehabilitation and transition centres in every province.

These facilities should offer temporary accommodation, healthcare, counselling, drug rehabilitation, legal assistance, skills training and employment placement rather than functioning as detention centres.

Housing must become the cornerstone of any long-term solution.

Zimbabwe possesses vast tracts of underutilised State land and farms that could be legally designated for affordable housing developments.

Instead of allowing such land to remain idle, government could partner private developers, housing co-operatives, churches and development agencies to build low-cost settlements with proper roads, water, electricity, schools and clinics.

However, houses alone will not solve homelessness if residents remain unemployed.

Every new settlement should be developed alongside functional local economies.

Government can establish special economic zones centred on agriculture, agro-processing, manufacturing, recycling, construction, textiles, furniture production and other labour-intensive industries capable of employing local residents.

Community gardens, irrigation schemes and small-scale farming projects could provide food security while generating household incomes.

Vocational training centres should equip residents with practical skills demanded by industry, enabling families to become economically self-sufficient rather than permanently dependent on social assistance.

Small business financing should also form part of the package.

Micro-credit facilities, start-up grants and entrepreneurship programmes can help former street dwellers establish sustainable livelihoods.

None of these interventions will succeed without accountability.

Public funds allocated for housing and social protection must be transparently managed.

Corruption that diverts resources away from vulnerable citizens must be treated as an assault on the nation’s future.

The measure of any government is not how it treats the powerful, but how it protects those with the least.

Families sleeping on Zimbabwe’s streets are not simply statistics in a parliamentary debate.

They are citizens whose dignity has been eroded by years of neglect.

Every child growing up under a bridge instead of in a home represents a collective failure.

A country that allows entire families to call pavements home cannot claim that homelessness is someone else’s problem.

It is everyone’s responsibility, but government must lead the response.

Zimbabwe does not need another clean-up campaign.

It needs a national rescue plan that restores dignity, creates opportunity and ensures that no family is forced to sleep under the open sky simply because the system failed them.