Back in May last year, Auckland Council had predicted homelessness would increase as a result of five key factors related to Government policy.
At the time, I asked the Prime Minister in Parliament if he could guarantee no one would be made homeless by his policies. As we’re unfortunately becoming accustomed to, he did not answer the question.
In March of this year, Auckland Council reported a 53% rise in rough sleeping in just four months. This answered the question.
The Government has consistently been clearly advised and warned that its choices would result in making more people homeless. More people are homeless. And they know it.
In December of last year, Minister Potaka received a Homelessness Insights briefing. It told him that providers in Hamilton had recorded a doubling of homelessness in the past year as his Government’s policies rolled out. Auckland’s officially counted outreach engagements with the visibly homeless population had increased by nearly two and a half times. In Wellington, they had recorded a near 30% increase in rough sleeping.
That means that he and the Prime Minister knew that their policies had made more people homeless when they stood in front of television cameras a month later, in January this year, and asked the country to celebrate a 75% reduction in emergency housing. If all you need to do to reach your goals is to stop supporting people, it’s easy if you don’t care where they end up.
Anyone with their eyes open can see more people are ending up on our streets.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Other cities and countries, like Finland, have invested meaningfully in housing first and the wrap-around support necessary to keep people in homes with resounding success.
Even from a right-wing economic perspective, this saves all of us more in the long run. People unhoused and unsupported people will understandably do whatever they need to survive, which can mean ending up on the wrong side of the law and deeper in the throes of challenges which come with substantial personal and social cost.
While we continue to fight to get the necessary preventative investment at the Parliamentary level, in the meantime, in Auckland Central, we’re going to do everything we can locally to try and stem the tide of inequality, poverty and homelessness created by Luxon’s Government policy.
That looks like mucking in to do whatever we can right now.
By the time you’re reading this, we will have officially launched the ‘Pink Hoods,’ a collaboration between our Auckland Central electorate office and Kick Back’s The Front Door.
The Front Door opened on Karangahape Road in July of last year with the sole purpose of preventing rangatahi homelessness. They are currently actively monitoring 120 children and young people to support them into stable homes. The youngest is 11.
The ‘Pink Hoods’ are a professionally trained, volunteer network of the willing in our community to connect with and support those who would otherwise be walked past and neglected – until there’s a problem. We are rolling out to prevent problems by identifying immediate solutions and ensuring progress isn’t stymied by a nonsense, bureaucratic ‘computer says no'.
If you want to get involved or learn more (or have anything else at all we can help with, as always), flick me an email at mp.aucklandcentral@parliament.govt.nz.
(Chlöe Swarbrick)
Chlöe Swarbrick,
T: 09 378 4810
E: chloe.swarbrick@parliament.govt.nz
www.greens.org.nz/chloe_swarbrick
