Seasonal workers and holidaymakers to displace homeless

Friday, 18 December 2020

<p>Dozens of homeless families in re-purposed RSE accommodation have been told they have four weeks to leave as the government approves an influx of seasonal workers from the Pacific.</p>

A woman’s teenage daughters have a plan for where the babies in the family will sleep once they are living in their car.

If they take the car seats out, the teens reckon they can lay the backseat flat and put a mattress across. Then they should be able to fit in their younger ones too.

If they park outside their grandparents’ one-bedroom flat, the family can maybe take turns sleeping on the floor and using the amenities.

* Coronavirus: New 'underclass' caused by Covid-19, Salvation Army says

* PM Jacinda Ardern announces $300 million funding boost to prevent homelessness

* 'Rat hole' motel investigation sparks emergency housing shakeup

* Desperate south Auckland couple have less than four weeks left in emergency housing

Since Covid struck, the Hastings family has been living in emergency and transitional housing. After bouncing between motels, they have spent the past five months in a repurposed seasonal workers’ bunkhouse in an industrial part of town.

There is nowhere for the children to play, no curtains, and the family were initially told they were not allowed to put up a cot or have any visitors, including grandparents.

Three RSE workers’ properties like this one in Omahu Rd are being used to house the homeless.

Now the family has been told they have four weeks to find other accommodation alongside dozens of other whānau in Hastings. They must move out so that incoming registered seasonal employer (RSE) workers - for whom the housing was built - can be accommodated.

At least 15 hotels in Hastings, like this one, are contracted to provide emergency accommodation.

The Government last month announced a border exemption that would allow 2000 seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands into the country to work on orchards.

But human rights advocates fear the influx of workers in places like the sunny East Coast – along with a boom in holiday tourism – will see many families turfed out of temporary accommodation.

Hawke’s Bay is now one of the worst spots in the country for housing. An analysis of the housing register by Stuff suggests almost one in every 100 people in the region are in need of a public house.

“These are desperate times, things will get worse during summer and Covid has just opened up all the cracks – housing cracks, income cracks, violence cracks,” said Salvation Army social policy analyst Ronji Tanielu. “It’s a perfect storm, and we are losing ground in this battle.”

Thousands of families are currently in emergency and transitional accommodation across New Zealand. Figures vary, but the most recent show 9823 people or whānau receiving an emergency special needs grant for motels in September. There are a further 3500 transitional housing places, some of which are motels but also hostels and shelters, private housing rented by the provider, or new builds.

Parents in temporary housing are required to continuously apply for private rentals, which they are increasingly unlikely to get. “There’s barely any places here to apply for,” the single mother-of-five and sickness beneficiary said.

”All the families here have just fallen into depression so badly, we are all in the same boat, and we’re trying to help each other, but we can’t because we are all homeless. It’s my son’s first Christmas, and we can't do anything, we're not even allowed to put up Christmas lights.”

There were some 21,415 families on the burgeoning public housing waitlist. In a briefing to Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni released this week, officials said many of those on the waiting list were unlikely to receive a public house.

While emergency and transitional housing was set up as a stop-gap measure to house the homeless, the average stay in a motel is now around 14 weeks. The residential tenancies act does not apply, so families can be kicked out at a moment’s notice or asked to comply with restrictive and arbitrary rules with no recourse.

Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit policy analyst Ronji Tanielu says we should expect to see more visible homelessness this summer.

There are three repurposed RSE bunkhouses currently housing Hastings’ homeless, and at least 15 hotels.

The complex is managed by non-profit iwi social services provider Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga. It referred questions about what would happen to the families living in RSE accommodation and how they would be helped into homes to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

MSD referred questions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) saying it held the contract with Te Taiwhenua. HUD said it was the role of contracted social services providers, of which Te Taiwhenua is one, to support people into other accommodation.

Community Law Aotearoa chief executive Sue Moroney said her organisation considered this a typical response from the “bureaucratic tangle” which allowed government departments to devolve responsibility.

It was pushing for both MSD and HUD to regulate providers and protect those who need it most. “Frankly, I find it shocking that any government department would do this to our most vulnerable. It’s so easy to play musical chairs on the issue,” Moroney said.

“There are currently millions of taxpayer dollars being used to fund housing there are absolutely no standards for. That shouldn’t be allowed to continue.

“Not only this, but emergency housing providers freely take a lot of money to provide emergency housing in the quiet times and then in the holiday season they refuse to take people. This could be resolved with a standard contract.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for HUD said it was starting work on a code of practice in consultation with emergency and transitional housing providers. Transitional housing providers had to be accredited before they were contracted, which was re-assessed every two years.

Tanielu said the Salvation Army had consistently raised issues about the quality of housing providers. He described housing complexes like motels as a “powderkeg”.

“You’re putting high-needs, highly complex people together. It’s not a rosy ‘the towels are being changed every morning’ kind of thing. This is a basic-as, Band-Aid solution that doesn't address some of the core issues families are facing, especially those waiting for a public house.

“You’re not talking about a room that’s geared up for a mum with four kids. It covers your head, it’s away from the rain, but it’s not a house. People are living away from normal support, school, church and cultural connections, and next to domestic violence, gangs, and people out of prison.”

He predicted a rise of visible homeless as the nights got warmer. And there was only one real solution to that, he said. “Build more houses.”