Rotorua has become a 'dumping ground' for the country's homeless, some locals claim

Wednesday, 10 March 2021

Motels in Rotorua are now filled with emergency housing clients instead of tourists. (This video was first published in March 2021.)

Government agencies and social service providers deny they are shipping homeless people to Rotorua to fill motels left empty by the Covid crisis. But there is evidence that many of those in emergency housing in the tourist town are from other centres. Tony Wall investigates.

Allaneice Tautari and Temple Haimona-Young feel like refugees in their own country.

Originally from Hawke's Bay, over the past month the young couple – expecting their first child in May – have been homeless in Wellington and now Rotorua.

They are two of thousands of people in emergency accommodation in Rotorua, where since the Covid crisis, motels have been filled with homeless rather than international tourists shut out by the closed border.

It's estimated that up to 2000 homeless people – many of them from other centres – are staying at about 45 motels in the city. Last year, the Ministry of Social Development spent about $10m on emergency accommodation grants in Rotorua, which has the second worst homeless problem in the country, behind Auckland.

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Allaneice Tautari and her partner Temple Haimona-Young stayed at this motel in Rotorua for two nights before Winz cut their funding.

Homeless people were placed in motels during level four lockdown, which ended last April.

But the number of emergency placements hasn’t dropped, leading politicians such as Rotorua MP Todd McClay to claim that people are being brought into town by social agencies, turning the city into a “dumping ground” for the homeless.

McClay says an associated rise in crime is ruining previously peaceful neighbourhoods.

“We’ve seen crime and nuisance grow significantly … gang involvement has grown too. There’s growing animosity [from residents].

“It’s not the fault of the homeless people, it’s about whether there’s a better solution. It comes back to the Government - ‘let’s just dump the problem in Rotorua’. There’s a lot of money being spent, some would argue it’s been wasted.”

Tautari, 18, and Haimona-Young, 20, fled a toxic family situation in Hawke’s Bay and went to Wellington, ending up in emergency housing where people were using drugs.

They asked to move to Rotorua; Work and Income NZ agreed to pay $500 for two nights at a motel there.

The couple claim their Wellington case manager told them to ask for an extension of the emergency grant at the Rotorua Winz office – but when they did, they were declined.

With nowhere else to go, they were given a spare room at the birthing unit at Rotorua Hospital, where Tautari, 28 weeks pregnant, had gone for a check-up when she noticed bleeding.

“They said we can stay here until we can figure something out. I feel like I'm taking up space that could be better used for someone else that actually needs it at the moment,” she says.

‘MSD Mile’

The influx of homeless into motels along Rotorua's main strip of Fenton St – nicknamed “MSD Mile” by locals – has led to a rise in crime and social disorder in the previously tranquil suburb of Glenholme.

In April last year, Police responded to an incident at Tuscany Villas, on Rotorua’s Fenton St, where homeless people were staying. Homeless advocate Tiny Deane said at the time there had been the “odd police visit” to the hotel but things improved after about 20 people were asked to leave.

People spoken to by Stuff described fights spilling on to the road, drug deals in the open, thefts from cars and garages, children being intimidated on the way to school and gang members hanging around.

“I wouldn’t let my kids walk to school, just because there are people around that are high, there’s a lot of high speed cars coming through the neighbourhood as well,” says Tammy-Lee Holmes, a Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator in the area.

“I think for the elderly people … a lot of them are a bit scared, they live on their own. A lot of them are increasing their security.”

Brett Wilson, who owns Watchdog Security, says crime has risen significantly in Glenholme and the CBD in recent months.

“I even sold a set of surveillance cameras to a cop the other day. I know another guy who got so sick of what was happening he shifted his business and moved to Cambridge.”

Wilson says his firm patrols a mall in central Rotorua, close to the motel strip, where his staff have been dealing with more and more domestic violence incidents.

“At the mall we're dealing with it every second day, where it used to be once a month at the most. The majority of that is out of town people.

“One night in Tilsley St, every single car parked on the street got broken into.”

Inspector Phil Taikato says increased crime is a 'perception'.

Wilson says while some of those staying at the motels and other emergency housing are in genuine need, others “know how to milk the system”.

“I don’t necessarily blame the moteliers, they've got to get a source of income when tourism has been smashed.

“Although a lot of them are absentee, offshore owners and they don't care about what happens in the city.”

‘It’s a perception’

Inspector Phil Taikato, area commander of Rotorua police, says while crime has 'relocated” from other neighbourhoods to the Fenton St area, overall crime in the city is down about 10 per cent over the past 12 months.

“Dare I say it, it’s horrible to say, but you’ve got all these young brown bodies, people walking up and down Fenton St and people don't like it. It’s a perception - I’m not going to say it’s racism. It’s just a perception there’s more crime happening down there.”

Taikato is chair of the Rotorua Collective Impact Governance Group, a cross-agency group set up last year to address some of the social issues facing the city.

”We’ve leveraged off the opportunity of emergency and transitional housing to actually get some real positive work done. It’s not going to be fixed in one day - the community just needs a bit of patience.”

Several people spoken to by Stuff blame the homeless charity Visions of a Helping Hand Trust for some of the issues, accusing the trust of 'shipping” homeless people into Rotorua from other centres to boost revenue.

Tiny Deane, of Visions of a Helping Hand Trust, says people are coming to Rotorua to escape desperate situations.

The trust’s revenue has increased from $111,000 in 2018 to $1.3m for the year ended April 2020. Most of its income then was from MSD.

The trust has recently won major contracts worth more than $4m with Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga – Ministry of Housing and Urban Development – to provide Covid emergency response services and transitional housing.

Chief executive Tiny Deane says he started with three staff and now has about 49. The trust has helped thousands of people, he says, and currently has about 150 on its books, staying at two motels run by the trust as well as 25 transitional houses.

“People think I’m making big bucks – ‘look at all the flash cars … and his brand new jet skis and his golf cart’ – I had all that s… before. I had more money when I was an owner driver at Mainfreight.”

Deane says it’s simply untrue that he actively brings people to Rotorua from other centres.

“I don't know how people think I can bring people in to Rotorua – I don't have the time or energy to do that. We have enough people to look after in Rotorua already.”

What's happening, Deane says, is that homeless people are moving about the country, often “running for their lives”.

“The majority of women have been bashed, beaten and raped, so they leave Wellington, they leave Auckland, Taranaki, Napier, and then they go to different towns to get away from Mongrel Mob, to get away from their Black Power partners.”

Deane agrees that there is an element of Nimbyism – ‘not in my back yard’ – attached to the complaints about the homeless population.

“People in this country can go anywhere, and when they register with MSD they now belong to this town, and they become part of Rotorua.”

One motel manager spoken to by Stuff estimates that 80 per cent of his emergency clients are from outside of Rotorua.

But a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development says it's “not aware” of people being relocated from other parts of the country. MSD had told it the “vast majority” of people in emergency housing in the city are from the region.

There are currently 676 applicants on the housing waiting list in Rotorua, and the city is a “priority area” for investment under the new public housing plan.

Mike Bryant, MSD's regional commissioner, says housing demand exceeds supply in Rotorua, as it does in many other areas.

While placing people in motels is not ideal, he says, “it is extremely important to us that people are not left to sleep rough”.

Bryant says MSD is aware of concerns about the behaviour of a 'small number” of emergency clients and is working with other agencies on how best to respond.

But Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick says the situation has become “critical”.

“While not everyone in emergency housing causes trouble, and not all the troublemakers are in emergency housing, those who are causing problems have created a situation which has escalated, and is now completely unacceptable,” she says.

“Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a roof over their head, but unfortunately the use of motels as emergency accommodation is proving not to serve this purpose.”

Chadwick says council staff and local MPs are lobbying central Government agencies to find “specific solutions to address our bespoke issues”.

“I issued a call recently for urgent progress to get people out of emergency accommodation and into homes,” she says.

“I acknowledge that we can’t do it overnight, and there is no single silver bullet, but as we are hearing from our community every day, something needs to change, and it needs to change now. I am prepared to step up and lead that change.”

Meanwhile, Tautari and Haimona-Young just want to find somewhere to call home.

Bryant says MSD had already paid the couple $2300 to stay in emergency accommodation in Wellington, and gave them $150 for food and $500 for temporary motel accommodation in Rotorua.

The reason they were declined further funding was that MSD understood Haimona-Young had family support in Rotorua.

“It is not appropriate for people to relocate to Rotorua in the hope of accessing emergency housing,” Bryant says.

“However, as Temple and Allaneice are without family support, we will remain in contact. We will also have a conversation with Temple about employment, which may lead to more housing options.”

The couple want to stay in Rotorua, as Tautari has registered at the hospital and has been assigned a midwife.

They feel they were given bad advice by their Winz case manager about the move, and left high and dry by the agency once they arrived.

“I feel like we’ve been shipped around and pretty much screwed over,” Tautari says. “They took us out of hardship and put us back into it.”