Sleepout highlights homelessness
UNIVERSITY of Otago students sleeping out in wintry conditions in the Octagon last night were playing a ‘‘pivotal’’ role in raising awareness about growing problems with homelessness.
That point was made by Dunedin city councillor Aaron Hawkins when he addressed more than 60 students shortly after the 7pm start of the third planned annual ‘‘sleepout’’ in the Octagon.
This 12hour event, organised through the University Volunteer Centre, aims to raise money to support the Dunedin Night Shelter.
This was a cause that student volunteers also strongly backed in the first of the sleepouts two years ago, when the Night Shelter, at that stage, urgently needed to raise funds to secure its future.
Cr Hawkins paid tribute to the ‘‘pivotal’’ role played by the students in helping to raise funds to support the Night Shelter and in helping to raise aware ness of the problem of homelessness.
The Dunedin Night Shelter Trust did ‘‘incredible work, but at the same time we all wish they were out of a job’’, he said.
In an ideal world, there would be no need for a night shelter and there would be no homelessness, but the reality was that homelessness was a real and growing problem in Dunedin and elsewhere in the country.
During a visit to central Auckland last week, he had seen many homeless people sleeping in doorways, and one person had held a sign saying ‘‘Don’t hate the poor’’.
To see homeless people struggling to survive in ‘‘Antarctic’’ weather conditions was ‘‘incredibly sad’’, and clearly a greater level of support from central government was needed to overcome these problems.
Cr Hawkins said he would also like to see the Dunedin City Council undertake more housingrelated planning work to counter growing homelessness in the city.
john.gibb@odt.co.nz