Auckland’s housing crisis has pushed up the number of rough sleepers on the city’s streets, says Lifewise.
Service manager Corrie Haddock said he had watched homelessness increase as the city’s housing stock lagged behind its population.
A rough sleeper outside Gucci on Queen St. Photo: Natalia Sutherland
In 2012, 164 homeless were referred for housing to accommodation providers and 56 were accommodated. This compared to 134 referred for housing and 39 accommodated in 2011.
Lesley Mynett-Johnson, Lifewise’s director of fundraising, marketing and communications, says the current number of homeless in a 3km radius of the Sky Tower is around 100.
She points out these are only head counts and there are no precise statistics of how many homeless people there actually are in Auckland.
Mr Haddock says head counts only identify a 10th of those who are homeless because homelessness is not really documented.
Lifewise is among several groups, including the New Zealand police and Auckland City Mission, who have joined forces with the council in its Regional Homeless Action Plan which proposes to clear Auckland’s streets of rough sleepers by 2020.
Both city councillor Cathy Casey and Mr Haddock are confident this goal will be achieved.
According to Mr Haddock, even with the plan in place there will still be too many people on the streets this year.
He says the Government’s new welfare reforms, the high unemployment rate, mental health patients not being housed and foster care youth leaving care at 17 without having any social and practical skills are the reasons people end up on the streets.
He believes there has to be a change in strategy with first tackling the need for housing with finding stable permanent accommodation as well temporary accommodation for the homeless.
However, Ms Casey, who is chair of the Auckland Council’s social and community development forum, does not believe Auckland’s housing crisis has boosted the number of homeless.
She says it is not a lack suitable housing that is needed for Auckland’s homeless but “a dire need for emergency housing”.
Ms Casey says that with more funding and a multi-million dollar government-run plan, homelessness can be solved nationwide.
She says, however, the Government does not want to deal with the issue and would prefer it to go away.
“There’s no votes in homelessness. It’s not sexy.
“But it’s not just a local problem, it’s a national problem.
“We need acknowledgement from government that this is a problem.”
Mr Haddock says the Government will have to get on board to deal with New Zealand’s homeless crisis eventually, but believes the current government will not.
Part of the homeless action plan is to raise public awareness of rough sleepers in order to get people off the streets.
Ms Casey says there has been a culture change in recent years with the public realising that homelessness is not a “choice of lifestyle”.
Mr Haddock believes social awareness has been raised to the issue of homelessness, but not enough and says there is still a need to “break down social myths” surrounding public perception of homelessness.
He says that if public awareness were greater there would be more funding for homelessness.
Auckland Council spends $50,000 of ratepayers’ money on homelessness each year.
