Call for better measure of homeless
Housing Minister Phil Twyford has asked Statistics NZ to look into a new measure of homelessness to take place in between censuses.
Homelessness is only measured on a national level by the fiveyearly census.
It means the conversation being had around homelessness is still relying on data from 2013, before housing prices in Auckland hit their peak.
Twyford said he had asked Statistics NZ to look into a way of getting more up-to-date data more regularly.
People without shelter – literally without a place to sleep – make up about one in 10 of the 41,705 Statistics NZ measures as ‘‘homeless’’.
The other nine in 10 are people temporarily living in unstable arrangements such as overcrowded homes of their relatives, or garages.
Twyford said getting an accurate and up-to-date measure of both was needed.
‘‘In Rotorua and Auckland recently some of the homelessness groups have done actual counts, that shows that things can be done,’’ Twyford said.
‘‘We’re talking with both Stats NZ and Kate Amore who has done some of the really great work with the Otago University on analysing the census data on whether we can use surveys and other tools to get an accurate read every two and a half years, in between the censuses.’’
Twyford did not yet have any details on how soon something like that could be put in place, and did not guarantee it could happen in 2020 – two years on from the 2018 census.
He suspected it would be a sample-based measure rather than a full count.
National’s housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said it would be useful to get a proper measure of the problem.
Opposition leader Simon Bridges said more measurement made sense, but the Government needed to actually act on housing rather than just talk about it.
The Government has promised to build an extra 1000 state homes a year to combat homelessness.
Twyford is hoping to get that promise boosted to 2000 homes but has not had that confirmed by Cabinet yet.