City combed for homeless
Goff tells critics $375,000 cost of head count worth it
Ksocial issues enny Dahl has been waiting for a home for 25 years. He slept on a mattress on the footpath outside the Auckland District Court last night.
“I actually don’t find it that bad. It’s a lifestyle that I’ve adjusted to. “But I need to be indoors,” he said. “My body is sore, I’m just really sore inside, my liver and kidney, from too much drinking.”
Dahl, 43, has been living on the street since age 18. He never found a home again after serving time for armed robbery.
He was one of hundreds of homeless who were counted and interviewed as part of the first Aucklandwide head count last night.
Between 9.30pm and midnight, up to 1000 volunteers scoured Auckland streets, alleyways, bushes and graveyards in an attempt to get a more accurate estimate of the roughsleeping population.
Dahl thinks he has been on the waiting list for social housing for 18 months, though he is not certain.
He said life had become more difficult after he had his right leg amputated beneath the knee.
Desmond Keen, 33, said he slept under a bridge near the Auckland waterfront, or in an abandoned house in Myers Park.
He had been sleeping rough for six years. After a failed trip to Australia in search of work in the mines, he returned to New Zealand and said he was abandoned by family.
“My complete goal is to get my Housing First house or Housing NZ house. Because once I’ve got a house I can build up from there.”
The volunteers worked in groups of three last night to cover the area from Wellsford in the north to Waiuku in the south, and from Piha in the west to Hunua in the east.
Mayor Phil Goff was among them, walking the streets in Mangere.
He said there was a “sense of shame” at the numbers on the streets.
While there had always been some homeless in Auckland, it had Could we see an international airport at Lumsden of all places? Mike has the details at 7.15am. ● First regionwide survey of rough sleepers.
● $375,000 cost of the head count.
● Final numbers to be published next month.
● Council will then talk to Government and NGOs about its response.
worsened in the past 20 years because of population growth, the cost of housing, and a slowdown in the provision of social housing, Goff said.
A University of Otago study in 2015 estimated there were around 4200 rough sleepers across the country, and about 771 in Auckland.
The final numbers from last night’s
count will be published next month. The council will then talk to Government and NGOs about its response.
The main response to homelessness so far has been the Housing First programme. It has housed 582 people since it started in Auckland 16 months ago, mostly in private rentals. About 85 per cent have stayed put.