Fact Sheet: GIS Care Overstrand - Mapping Elder Care Resources in Zwelihle, Mount Pleasant & Hawston 2026

<p dir="ltr">[Fact Sheet]</p><p dir="ltr">This fact sheet examines elder care in Zwelihle, Mount Pleasant and Hawston, three communities in the Overstrand Municipality, to explore a policy tension at the heart of South Africa's Older Persons Act: the Act promotes ageing in place, but investment in community-based care that would make this viable remains limited. Drawing on a comparative study across the three sites, the fact sheet documents existing services, examines what is actually accessible and used, and identifies ways to strengthen community-level support.</p><p dir="ltr">Its central argument is that the presence of services does not guarantee access to them.

All three communities have a patchwork of resources: social clubs, soup kitchens, outreach programmes, volunteer transport, medication collection, health checks and meal provision, but these operate in isolation from one another, with weak referral pathways and little systematic coordination. As a result, access depends heavily on individuals who happen to connect older people to available resources, making social networks a critical but largely invisible form of care infrastructure.