Children make up almost a third of Auckland's homeless

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Volunteers gather at Eden Park for a safety briefing ahead of Auckland's first homeless census.

More than 1300 children were counted as sleeping in temporary accommodation on one night in Auckland last year, according to figures released by the council on Thursday.

That number was almost a third of the city's homeless population – which included those in temporary accommodation – surveyed during the point-in-time Homeless Count in September last year.

Housing First Auckland's programme manager Fiona Hamilton said living in temporary accommodation was 'still homelessness and being homeless as a child is a risk factor for being homeless as an adult'.

More than 3600 people were found sleeping rough or in temporary accommodation on one night in Auckland last year.

Social workers on the ground said the results underestimated the amount of under-18-year-olds sleeping rough.

A homeless community under a bridge in West Auckland's New Lynn, last year, included several under-18-year-olds.

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The council's report noted just one child found either sleeping in a car or a public space, but the Salvation Army's John Maeva said he knew of six youths sleeping under bridges in the west Auckland suburb of New Lynn at the time.

Auckland Council and the Housing First Auckland Collective ran the count, which found Māori, ex-prisoners and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people were over-represented among the homeless.

While Māori make up 11 per cent of the general population in Auckland, about 43 per cent of those living without shelter and 40 per cent of people in temporary accommodation on September 17 were Māori.

Social worker Owen Pomana (right) with his helper Moses Folau (centre) and a homeless man (left) under a bridge in central Auckland.

In total, volunteers and government data showed at least 3674 people to be without shelter or in temporary accommodation across the Auckland region that night.

The report said 800 people were considered to be 'living without shelter'. That number was gleaned through a 'validation exercise' based on an actual count of 336 people.

Of those, 53 per cent were sleeping rough and and 47 per cent in cars.

More were counted in central Auckland than anywhere else.

Former rough sleeper Andrew Thompson built a home for his fellow homeless under a West Auckland bridge last year.

Social worker Owen Pomana, who ministers to homeless people across Auckland, said he believed there were 'at least 300 rough sleepers in the central city alone'.

He agreed with Maeva that more youths slept rough than the count suggested.

'You get all sorts, 15-year-olds, even younger, out there,' Pomana said.

'Each story is different, but it's usually due to unrest at home – something goes wrong and they run away.'

Maeva said runaway teens often wound up joining groups of older homeless people, thus finding an accepting community.

That, and the drugs that tended to accompany such groups, could encourage the youngsters to linger, he said.

'But I also see the older ones trying to protect them from that life, encouraging them to go home to their families and avoid drugs.'

Those in temporary accommodation included 1027 people in Ministry of Social Development emergency housing.

Single parents, under-18-year-olds, Māori and Pasifika people were over-represented.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said the council and Housing First had housed 964 people over the past 22 months, but noted there was 'still much to be done'.

'I therefore welcome the Government's commitment last week to invest $200 million over the next four years to expand the Housing First programme.'

Housing First is a collective of six organisations and described itself as having an 'internationally recognised, evidence-based approach to ending homelessness'.