Inner City Pressure: 'It's hard watching elderly eat out of bins’

Wednesday, 29 December 2021

“I didn’t grow up seeing homeless people on the streets and knowing that some families must live in their cars because of a chronic housing shortage,” writes Rosemary McLeod.

Covid-19 has wrought big change in Auckland’s city centre. With international students and foreign workers nowhere to be seen, concerns are mounting that it’s becoming a crime-ridden ghost town. But amid the darkness are glimmers of hope. Stuff explores the future of downtown Auckland.

Everything Derek owns is on a bench outside the Auckland public library.

He’s just cooked up his dinner of fish and eggs on a camping stove. If it rains tonight, he’ll sleep under the awning nearby. But if it’s fine, he’ll head across to Aotea Square.

Derek is one of hundreds of Auckland’s city centre homeless.

* Rainbow communities at 'higher risk of homelessness', says new research

* Covid-19: 100 days locked down in emergency housing

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, many of the city’s homeless were offered emergency accommodation in hotels across the city, in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.

Owen Pomana, of Humanity NZ, is helping feed Auckland’s homeless who have been doing it tough during lockdown.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development helps those in emergency housing by providing support in accessing benefits, budgeting and health services.

Derek was the recipient of emergency housing during the Covid-19 lockdown in August. He was given a room at the Goodview Hotel on nearby Hobson St, but it only lasted two weeks.

He says he lost his swipe card for the door and couldn’t find any hotel staff to get a replacement so simply moved back onto the streets.

Sleeping rough on Auckland's Queen St during level four lockdown.

In his two weeks at Goodview, he said no one came to see him.

Those on the ground spoken to by Stuff say Covid-19 has highlighted the issue of homelessness and lessons can be learned.

Owen Pomana, Ngati Kahungunu, of Humanity NZ knows what it’s like to be homeless. He survived on the streets of Sydney’s Kings Cross before coming into contact with the law.

He’s since turned his life around and become a preacher, helping the homeless for the past six years. “It’s a privilege to be able to restore people’s lives.”

At its peak, his organisation was feeding up to 200 homeless, twice a day, seven days a week.

“Anyone who tells you they like to be homeless is a liar … It’s hard watching elderly gentlemen eating out of rubbish bins.”

Michelle Kidd’s title is Te Kaihono ki te Rangimarie, One Who Works Towards Peace. Her trust, Te Rangimarie, helps the vulnerable at the Auckland District Court.

Despite Covid-19 restrictions lessening, Humanity NZ is still active, providing food, clothing and blankets to those in need.

Pomana says many of those in emergency housing have never lived in flats before and don’t trust “the system”.

There are also those who can’t read and don’t know how to pay bills or keep a house clean.

A homeless person takes shelter outside the Auckland District Court on Albert St.

He says gangs are also using the streets to recruit people to deal drugs, especially the “zombie drug” synthetic cannabis.

There are “wraparound” services, Pomana says, “but they don’t go the extra mile”.

Pomana would like to see a “buddy service” where emergency housing residents are paired up and can help each other.

Shiloh Groot from the University of Auckland specialises in homelessness and inequality, with a focus on Māori.

He would like to see a more “holistic approach” applied to homelessness. That could include using marae outside the cities, to teach craft, kai growing skills and fishing.

For the past 20 years, Michelle Kidd has supported the homeless and other vulnerable people, negotiating their way through the justice system.

A staunch advocate of therapeutic justice, Kidd’s Te Rangimarie Charitable Trust has a permanent office at the Auckland District Court.

She says some families in emergency housing are living nextdoor to people with mental health issues, drug and alcohol addiction and sometimes all three. Many experience violence and threats.

“That’s why they end up here, lying outside the court. They say: ‘Whaea, at least I know you won’t let anyone hurt us here’.”

She says she has seen a District Court judge and prosecutors challenge defence lawyers on the standards of “wraparound support” when an emergency housing hotel has been put up as a possible bail address.

“Don’t tell me there’s support. There’s not. There are people making millions and there’s no accountability.”

University of Auckland psychology lecturer Dr Shiloh Groot’s areas of expertise include homelessness and urban poverty.

She says homelessness is another social measure where Māori and Pasifika are over-represented and is a symptom of poor outcomes in education, housing, income, justice and health, to name a few.

“Some would have been living on the streets for years, some would have been living in a precarious situation for years,” she says.

“You’re housing a whole bunch of people who may not be the best for each other or able to support each other.”

Groot says there are long-term drug abusers housed with people straight out of prison, and then families who have been living in cars.

“It’s not the most humane and efficient system, it’s not the most supportive way to help people … I think there’d be a fear that this is just the creation of a different kind of ghetto.”

She says some choose not to engage with emergency housing, possibly out of a lack of trust in Government institutions.

The emergency housing initiatives of the lockdown in 2020 were the first time there had been a concerted effort to tackle homelessness and there were encouraging signs, she says.

But just focusing on putting people into housing without addressing other needs was destined to fail.

“The long-term maintenance and that social investment in people to ensure they are flourishing is missing. They’re just tinkering around the edges.”

Groot says there are community organisations doing “amazing” work, but the new funding is not necessarily reaching those who need it most.

Radical change is needed, she says, including regulation of the housing market and further changes to the laws governing landlords. “It’s all the unpopular stuff.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development says demand for emergency housing continues to rise due to factors including housing shortages and rising rents. Covid-19 has thrown up additional challenges.

“New Zealand’s housing challenges were decades in the making – they can’t be fixed overnight or by Government alone.”

The spokesman said during the Covid-19 pandemic, there had been cross-agency work to source additional accommodation, enact a rent increase freeze, stop tenancy terminations and allow mortgage payment deferrals.

The Homeless Action Plan that came into force in February last year aims to help 10,000 people nationwide into housing over the next three years.