We already have a solution to end rough sleeping - it's housing

Friday, 7 November 2025

People who have been denied access to shelter come to the city centre because visibility and community is a form of safety and protection, writes Aaron Hendry. (File photo)

Aaron Hendry is a youth development worker, rangatahi advocate, and director of Kick Back, which works on youth homelessness in Aotearoa.

OPINION: The Government has confirmed it is considering introducing a ban on rough sleeping in our major city centres.

If such a ban is introduced, it will be amongst some of the most dangerous legislation this Government has put forward to date.

The impact will be immediate. People who have nowhere else to go will be driven from the city centre and forced to take shelter in more dangerous and unsafe environments, or risk being criminalised for having no access to housing.

Our rangatahi, tamariki, our wahine and our takatapui and rainbow whānau specifically will be at increased risk of abuse, sexual violence, assault and exploitation.

People who have been denied access to shelter come to the city centre because visibility and community is a form of safety and protection. They are often there because they have nowhere safe to go, because they have reached out for help and been denied support.

The increasing presence of people sleeping rough around many cities has prompted the Government to suggest measures to move them on. (File photo)

For the young people we serve at Kick Back (the youth homelessness service I lead) they have often been let down and harmed by multiple government agencies and adults in their lives before they end up in a position where they are being forced to sleep rough on Queen St.

The question proponents of this ban need to answer is, where do they expect people to go? Despite the Government's assurances that it is doing everything it can to respond to the homelessness crisis which is escalating across this country, the truth of the matter is revealed through the very clear political decisions the Government has been making since it came to power.

It is critical that the public understand that the reason we are seeing more of our people sleeping outside on our streets is because this Government made the decision to increase barriers to emergency housing; it decided to stall and stop public housing build projects across the country; and has put pressure on Kāinga Ora to increase evictions.

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It has cut millions tagged to housing rangatahi experiencing homelessness and gutted the homelessness action plan, while also weakening renters’ rights and strengthening landlords’ power to evict whānau without cause.

It is these decisions, the Government's decisions, which have increased homelessness and resulted in the very problem the Government now says it wants to solve by criminalising the victims of political decisions it has made.

Our whānau experiencing homelessness are not the problem. The problem is created by those with the power to end this injusticechoosing not to.

Too often we view homelessness as a sad and unfortunate accident, as opposed to what it is: the result of intentional, informed and political choices that place a higher value on the financial interests of people who own houses than on the lives of those who need to live in them.

We need to be clear that there is already a solution to prevent rough sleeping in our major city centres. It is for the Government to protect and uphold our people's most basic right, to housing.

The coalition Government has ended a significant proportion of the emergency housing arrangements such as with motels which its predecessor set up. In this file photo, police are pictured attending an incident at one such emergency housing property, in New Plymouth.

If the Government wanted to ensure none of our people were forced to sleep outside on our city streets, it could roll back its emergency housing reforms and implement duty to assist legislation to ensure that anyone reaching out to Work & Income in need of shelter got it.

It could invest in building a robust crisis response and immediate housing system to ensure that when people have nowhere to go and need shelter, they can access the support they need when they need it.

It could commit to building more public housing, strengthening renters’ rights, and rolling back no-cause evictions.

It could make the decision to embed the right to housing in our Bill of Rights and commit itself to investing in ensuring all our people can access safe, stable and affordable housing.

Homelessness is a problem we can solve but if we are going to do so we need to stop attacking unhoused people, and start making different political choices. Choices that show value for people over profit.

Choices that are pragmatic, practical and actually respond to the reality of what is happening to our people and in our communities, instead of punishing people for political decisions which are outside of their own control.

Homelessness is a political choice. We can - and must- begin making different ones. #BinTheBan