Hiding homelessness won’t do anything to solve it

Thursday, 9 July 2026

A homeless person sleeps in Cathedral Square in February. At this time of the year the cold is constant for the homeless, Jill Hawkey says.

Jill Hawkey is Executive Director of the Christchurch Methodist Mission (CMM).

OPINION: There is a particular kind of cold in Christchurch at this time of year. It settles into the long nights and seeps into the marrow.

For most of us, it is something we experience briefly before returning to a warm home. But for a growing number of people in our city, the cold is constant.

Right now, around 250 people known to Christchurch Methodist Mission’s Housing First Ōtautahi and Outreach Rapid Response services are homeless. Approximately a third are women.

They are sleeping under bushes, near railway bridges, in garden sheds, in parks, or, if they are fortunate, couch surfing with friends for a few nights before returning to the streets. These are not statistics. They are people with names, histories, relationships and hopes.

In recent months, much has been made of falling emergency housing numbers. Targets have been met and official measures have improved. Yet what we are seeing on the ground tells a different story: homelessness has not disappeared, even if it has become less visible in the numbers.

The question raised by recent reporting is whether a strong focus on reducing emergency housing figures riskS prioritising the metric over the person. Nobody wants to see people homeless, not politicians, public servants, NGOs, or members of the public. But the reality is, policies and a focus on metrics can lead to increased homelessness.

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We see this in the Government’s target to reduce the number of people in emergency housing by 75%, alongside the lack of funding in Ōtautahi for building any new social or affordable housing — a combination that was always likely to deepen hardship for already vulnerable people.

The reality is that when someone is denied emergency accommodation, they do not simply vanish. They end up somewhere else: on the street, in hospital, interacting with police, or relying on already stretched community services. The cost is not eliminated; it has shifted elsewhere.

Christchurch also faces a challenge that deserves greater attention. According to the latest homelessness data, our city has the highest rate in the country of people being released from Corrections into homelessness, with 17% released with no fixed abode. That is not a recipe for successful reintegration. It is a pathway to greater social and economic costs down the track.

Jill Hawkey says homelessness is “showing up in new ways” in Christchurch, with more older people seeking help.

And homelessness is showing up in new ways. More older people are now seeking help as rising rents outpace what a superannuation income can cover. These are people who have worked, paid taxes, raised families and contributed to their communities, but now find themselves unable to secure affordable housing.

Meanwhile, demand continues to exceed available housing. In May alone, we housed 25 people; more than one for every working day. But new people are coming through our door at roughly twice that rate. We are making progress one household at a time, yet the overall number continues to grow because the pipeline into homelessness is larger than the pathway out.

Our Outreach Rapid Response service demonstrates both the challenge and the opportunity. This team recently received extended funding, for which we are grateful, although it is at under 60% of last year’s level. They have supported 120 people and helped 40 into housing in the last six months. About half of those assisted believed they were on the social housing register when they were not, highlighting how difficult the system can be to navigate.

At the same time, our experience is that it is now very rare for people sleeping rough to be approved for emergency housing. This reality sits uncomfortably alongside claims that homelessness is improving.

That is why proposals to move homeless people on from public spaces are so troubling: Move-On orders risk punishing people for a policy environment they did not create, pushing vulnerable individuals even further from essential support services and effectively criminalising poverty instead of addressing its causes.

The solution is neither complicated nor partisan. New Zealand has significantly less social housing than many comparable countries: around 3.8% of our housing stock is social housing, compared with the 7% OECD average and about 17% in the United Kingdom. If we are serious about reducing homelessness, we need sustained investment in social and affordable housing and a long-term, cross-party commitment that survives election cycles.

If we fail to make that investment, the costs will continue to appear elsewhere; in the health system, the justice system, and emergency services.

Ultimately, Christchurch’s homelessness crisis will not be solved by improving spreadsheets or moving people out of sight. It will be solved when everyone has a place to call home. That is why my organisation is drawing attention to this issue through our Doors to Dignity campaign, which advocates for all older people to be housed well.

And in August, we will host Christchurch’s inaugural Big Sleepout South at One New Zealand Te Kaha Stadium, where leaders from across the community will give up their beds for a night to raise awareness of homelessness and vital funds for local services.

Because if we are to build a city where everyone has the dignity of a safe home, awareness must be matched by action.