Home From Home Trust said Sassa owed it R1.7 million in unpaid foster care grants dating back two years.

• Home From Home Trust said Sassa owed it R1.7 million in unpaid foster care grants dating back two years.
• The Cape Town organisation is forced to cover a monthly shortfall of R40 000 to R50 000 from its own funds to ensure foster mothers can feed and house more than 200 children in its care.
• The matter has been escalated to Sassa on multiple occasions, but the organisation is yet to see a cent of the unpaid grants.

A Cape Town foster care organisation says the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) owes it R1.7 million in unpaid grants, forcing it to cover a R40 000 monthly shortfall while international funding dries up.

The Home from Home Trust, a registered NPO providing cluster foster care for more than 200 children in Cape Town, said it had been fighting Sassa for almost two years to have childcare grants for more than 30 children paid out.

Its director, Peter Marx, said the childcare grants were specifically to support children with food and housing, and that the organisation had been covering these costs while waiting for Sassa to pay out.

The burden of covering the more than R40 000 shortfall every month is now threatening the organisation’s long-term sustainability.

“What we do as an organisation, we pay that grant anyway, even if we don’t receive the grant. We pay that amount into the foster mom’s account, so she has the funds to care for the children. But obviously, when 30 or 40 of these grants are not being paid, we are paying out R40 000 to R50 000 a month. We must find that money elsewhere,” added Marx.

“This R1 200 a month per child translates into a lot of money when you’ve got over 30 or 40 children, and you’re an NGO that faces the difficulty in fundraising and making yourself sustainable.”

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He said after engaging with Sassa in June 2024, the organisation was required to jump through various administrative hoops.

However, none of the time-consuming processes completed had resulted in the grants being paid.

“Both the Department of Social Development and Sassa made a promise that by the latest end of January, maybe February, we would definitely be paid for all the children we applied for, and those processes wouldn’t last longer than three months. Well, since then, I’ve had countless reports, and yes, while some applications have been accepted, others haven’t,” added Marx.

“Currently, they are sitting with over 30 applications that they have accepted, but haven’t processed. It’s never been under 30 over the two years we’ve been dealing with this. There are some children on that list who should have been registered over a year ago.”

He said the organisation was also feeling the pinch, with numerous donors having pulled out of the country in the last year.

Marx added:

“If there’s money that’s legitimately yours, that’s legally meant to be paid, that’s the place you want to first go to. And those payments are going to make a big difference to our budget issues for the year.”

Sassa and the Department of Social Development (DSD) had not responded at the time of publication. Their responses will be added once received.

Western Cape Social Development MEC Jaco Londt said his office had been “monitoring the situation very closely” and had “during the last year made several attempts to escalate it to the relevant officials at Sassa”.

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“DSD WC [Western Cape] funds social work services posts at Home from Home. DSD WC, however, does not fund the individual care of children at this facility. Sassa, an entity of the national DSD, is responsible for the administration and payment of grants for the individual care of the children,” added Londt.

“Provincial social development departments are legislatively responsible for the registration of cluster foster children’s homes and ensuring that norms and standards are adhered to. If a facility in the province faces closure or is unable to care for the children, the WC DSD will find suitable, alternative placements for them,” he said.