Homeless initiative for Government discussion

Getting homelessness on the Government’s policy agenda and developing a national strategy for the problem were the focus of a national forum in Christchurch recently.

Salvation Army resident supervisor and member of the Rough Sleeping Initiative Bruce Tremain says the New Zealand Government was the last in the world to officially accept that homelessness was a problem.

The Rough Sleepers Initiative began after the Auckland City Mission was made aware of a woman who had been trespassed by many different churches and public service organisations.

Wilf Holt was one of the founders of the group and has worked for the Auckland City Mission for many years. “If you walk from the City Mission at the top of Hobson St to Sky City at night you will pass at least 60 people sleeping rough, although you may not see them.”

This group includes representatives from the Government, Salvation Army, Methodist Church and the city mission. The initiative carries out annual surveys and in the 2008 count there were approximately 91 homeless people in central Auckland.

The survey was carried out on the evening of Sunday, June 22 from 8pm onwards but Holt says this was just the tip of the iceberg and it is more likely that 150 people live rough on the streets every day.

Tremain says that according to survey results, there are 20,000 homeless people in Tasmania. Considering Tasmania has a similar population to New Zealand, “we can assume there are approximately 20,000 homeless people here as well”.

Of the 91 people sleeping rough on the night of the survey 27 were female. However, Tremain believes that “females are less likely to live on the street” choosing prostitution to get a room for the night and living in bad relationships because there is nowhere else to go.

With Auckland’s city centre having the highest rate of homeless people in the Auckland region, Auckland City is currently reviewing its homeless action plan.

Homeless people don’t only live on the streets. In fact there are three types of homeless people: primary homeless are rough sleepers, secondary homeless are those who have found refuge with family or friends and tertiary homeless who live in boarding houses.

More than 600 tertiary homeless living in boarding houses were counted in the survey.

That means there are “a lot more homeless people that have gone under the radar”, says Tremain.