The vibrant suburb rallying around its growing street community

Saturday, 19 April 2025

Homelessness has increased across Wellington and has seen more people move from the central city to suburbs like Newtown.

All any of Paige Simoneau’s customers would talk about at her Newtown cafe at one stage last year was the visible increase in homelessness in the suburb.

The owner of Black Coffee had also noticed the drug use, begging and aggression – visible and audible – on Riddiford St.

“I heard it from customers who are residents, workers, hospital staff, business owners – everyone just couldn’t stop talking about it, about how unsafe they felt.”

People “screaming at the top of their lungs” by the ATM didn’t make her feel confident people felt comfortable going about their daily lives in Newtown.

Paige Simoneau, owner of Black Coffee on Riddiford St, decided to take action last year when the rise in homelessness and community feeling unsafe dominated conversations among her customers, determined to change the narrative.

It led her to creating the Newtown Community Consortium group, involving police, Downtown Community Ministry (DCM), Salvation Army, Wellington City Mission, Green MP Julie Anne Genter, Wellington City Council, deputy mayor Laurie Foon and community members.

Simoneau wanted to gather different parts of the community to address the issue, change the negative narrative around being on the streets and focus on finding solutions together.

About 30 people showed up at the first meeting.

But a year on, there has only been an increase of 'aggression, more homelessness”, Simoneau says.

Police, social service, business owners, and mental health teams say they are all engaged with rough sleepers in Newtown.

“It's kind of a circle – a continuing circle that people fall out of constantly and that's frustrating.

“You want to see these people get the care that they need. It's incredibly heartbreaking to watch people deteriorate in front of your eyes.”

According to DCM, the number of rough sleepers across the capital city has gone up 35% in the last three months compared with the same time last year.

Natalia Cleland, kaiarataki (senior leader) at DCM, says the visible rough sleepers in Newtown are engaged with her housing team but there simply isn’t enough adequate housing or support.

The organisation started noticing people moving from the city centre to suburbs, including Newtown, as the presence of police in the central city increased.

The general rise in the numbers of people on the streets coincided with the tightening of emergency housing access, DCM kaiarataki (senior leader), Natalia Cleland, says (though Housing Minister Chris Bishop rejects this idea, having told Q+A that the Government's tightening of emergency housing hasn’t led to an increase in homelessness).

New Ministry of Social Development rules to consider a person’s own contribution to their homelessness is also concerning, Cleland says.

“We're not talking about people who have a whole lot of choice and resources at their disposal.”

She is troubled by the stories she hears, unable to understand why a person in crisis is denied access to emergency or transitional housing.

The community in Newtown have now done three neighbourhood clean up days since last year to tidy up the suburb.

There are always more people coming through their door – between 30 and 50 new faces drop by every quarter for help.

Walking around Newtown on a Wednesday morning, there are mattresses, bags and blankets wedged in shop doorways and in corners outside the church.

Shopping carts parked in doorways or next to bus shelters hold the belongings of absent rough sleepers.

Just three days earlier, business owners and residents, led by Simoneau and neighbouring business owner David McLean, did a community clean up.

It was the third clean up, supported by the Wellington City Council. About 20 people showed up, filling 26 bags of rubbish.

Duncan McLean has been running his eponymous fashion label in Newtown since 2002 and wants to see the vibrancy of the suburb to return with more support for its rough sleeping community.

McLean points to behind a bus shelter where he had pulled out a rug, a car seat, about 20 loaves of old bread, hundreds of empty little plastic zip lock bags, presumed to be for drugs, and human faeces.

Two loaves of bread and at least three plastic bags had reappeared.

“It’s an absolute shocker,” he says.

Volunteers collected 26 bags fill of rubbish around Newtown last Sunday, including hundreds of empty drug bags, mouldy bread and human faeces.

“I think the community is very caring and people want to help but it's just getting to join the dots between the police, social services, the community centre, the residents association, trying to get the hospitals on board as well, and mental health.”

McLean has been running his eponymous fashion label in Newtown since 2002.

The multicultural and vibrant cross-section of society on its streets brought him to the suburb – he describes it as always having a reputation for being “a bit frisky”.

But he worries the eccentric character is starting to blur with unkempt streets, people who call it home appearing increasingly unwell and the backdrop of dilapidated buildings.

Begging and some aggressive behaviour has had an impact on their business, the owner of Central Stores, Nelish, says.

He believes education is a priority for local business owners and staff to feel like they can de-escalate and manage “tricky situations with people”, when they are not equipped to deal with the mental health issues presented to them.

'You're trying to run a business as well as deal with that, and that's pretty full on.”

Nelish, who only wants his first name used, has similarly been running his business, Central Stores – a dairy at the bottom of Rintoul St – for more than two decades.

The homelessness is the worst he’s ever seen, he says.

Makeshift beds set up outside the church.

He has had to be strict with who he lets in after facing theft and aggressive behaviour but people begging outside his shop has also had an impact on his business.

He recognises some are “really desperate and need the help” but has little faith they will, while he thinks others who are housed and with benefit access are abusing the system.

“I work hard for my money and I feel angry that the taxes are being misused by these guys,” Nelish says.

Further up Riddiford St outside the New World is where the street community is perhaps most visible, Rhona Carson, president of the Newtown Residents' Association, says.

Walking around Newtown, shop entrances are barricaded with mattress, blankets and other belongings of rough sleepers.

Concerns have been raised about the welfare of those on the streets and she feels frustrated that the Government has paused social housing developments.

“I just want it to be more of a priority for the Government,” Carson says.

There were 112,496 people around the country estimated to be severely housing deprived at the time of the 2023 Census. It was an increase of more than 13,000 people since 2018.

New World Newtown owner David Wickham has beggars and rough sleepers outside the shop entrance but has been working with them to manage their impact on his customers.

Not everyone visible on the Newtown streets is homeless, Cleland says.

The six people known to DCM are at the sharpest end of chronic homelessness, meaning they have severely complex issues and experiences of trauma, making them some of the most difficult to house.

“They are what people would say are ‘the hardest to reach’,” she says, “but what we know is that they actually want to be supported”.

All six are engaged with the ministry’s staff, five of whom are working with its Housing First team – its wraparound support housing service, but there is not enough housing.

David Wickham spends a good portion of his time dealing with the begging and rough sleeping community but believes it has led to better outcomes.

“It's the same story you will have heard before – I wish that there was something more or different to say”, Cleland says, “but it just simply is not getting better”.

Genter, MP for Rongotai, says the building of more than 220 Kāinga Ora homes have been cancelled across the electorate since 2023, including in Newtown.

Meanwhile, as of February 28, there were 17 Kāinga Ora housing projects under assessment in Wellington City, totalling 432 units, Kāinga Ora Wellington regional director Vicki McLaren says.

Advocates say the tightening of emergency housing and lack of building new homes is leading to a rise in the homeless.

The Ministry of Social Development at last count, in December, had 690 people in Wellington City on the waiting list for a home. Nearly all of them are high priority. There were more than 1800 across the Wellington region.

New World Newtown owner David Wickham has been working with the contingent of beggars and rough sleepers who occupy his shop entrance to find ways to balance their use of the shelter while minimising the impact on his customers.

He also spent time trying to connect new faces with the right social services.

Salvation Army director of housing strategy, Mark Limmer, says more support is needed for those who get housed to be able to sustain their tenancy.

Not everyone is as responsive and recently he decided to remove a bench around the corner that was becoming a congregation spot to drink in the alcohol-ban area.

“We try to work with them as much as we can and try not to be heavy handed, unless it's really necessary,” Wickham says.

“I could take a lot less time but I don't think we would get as potentially as good a result if we didn't spend a bit of time doing it.”

There were 112,496 people estimated to be severely housing deprived at the time of the 2023 Census. It was an increase of more than 13,000 people since 2018.

Although it was good to see the community’s willingness to donate money and food, he encourages people to support community organisations like DCM, the City Mission and Salvation Army, rather than directly giving to people.

“In the long term it would be more beneficial to go through the correct organisation so they can get more help – and better help.”

Senior Sergeant Jason McCarthy says police are aware of the shift of beggars and homeless people moving to Newtown and have patrols focused on the area.

It has had more call outs for disorderly behaviour and threats and where there is a breach of peace, police should be the first port of call, McCarthy says. From there, it can link the appropriate agencies.

Those who DCM works with are on the sharpest end of chronic homelessness. Without better housing and supports funded by the government, Cleland finds it difficult to see how they were truly make their way out of homelessness.

Having beat times and community patrol has had an impact, he says, creating reassurance for the public and retailers while also trying to engage with people to find the right support.

Te Whatu Ora also has two teams known as the Team for Assertive Community Treatment (TACT) team and Te Roopu Aramuka Wharoaroa.

They consist of nurses, social workers and a psychiatrist providing wraparound support services to homeless people in the Wellington region, Jane Jeffries, TACT team leader central regional, says.

Half of the homeless are women, but their plight is often overlooked

Many of the street community have experiences of trauma and present complex mental health disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar so building trust is one of the main obstacles her team faces.

Like many others, establishing a rapport with people who have often “completely disengaged with all services and the social fabric of life” is a large part of their job.

“There is no doubt we are seeing more extreme behaviours exacerbated by substance abuse, which make mental health conditions harder to treat and can be a barrier to housing,” Jeffries says.

To Mark Limmer, director of housing strategy at Salvation Army, most people on Newtown’s streets are familiar faces.

Some have been placed in a home but were unable to sustain their tenancy and were back on the streets, he says.

The welfare system works for “most of the people most of the time” and people are continuously being housed. But for those who fall through the cracks, it can be a complex and confusing process to navigate – “and it’s not always fast”, Limmer says.

He supports the move away from emergency housing motels but says people need to be adequately supported to succeed moving into housing.

“It gets real complex when people find it really hard to manage their own lives; managing a tenancy is just an added complexity.”

The demand also quite simply outstrips the supply.

Wellington City Mission relocated from across New World, opening Whakamaru on Adelaide Rd last year. Its manuhiri (guests) have shifted with them while it has also welcomed new faces from other areas of the city who access its services, city missioner Murray Edridge says.

He sees Newtown as a microcosm of what is happening throughout the city and other urban centres across the motu.

DCM’s Cleland finds the community response and support in Newtown encouraging, as well as people putting pressure on government departments around housing solutions.

It indicates people understand “they’re not wanting to be here out of choice, and they have a right to housing, and they are someone who deserves to be safe”, she says.

DCM has an 0800 number notification system through the council if people are concerned about someone rough sleeping. The council also has a notification system called FIXiT where people can report public property that needs to be fixed.

She encourages people to use the notification system, though most of the time her teams are already working with them.

The rough sleepers known to them in Newtown sat at the highest priority for social housing rating and DCM has no issues with engaging with them.

“They're simply waiting on a house.”

Cleland pauses and considers the question carefully when asked if she is hopeful that they eventually will be housed.

“Yes – always, but I say that because you have to always hold hope. In the face of it being more and more difficult for people who have high and complex needs to be accepted into permanent housing, it's hard to genuinely see solutions in this but yes, always.

“What keeps me in the role, is the fact that we haven't got to the end of this.”

If you are concerned about a person who is rough sleeping, you can ring Wellington City Council on (04) 499 4444, and they will notify the Toro Atu team.