$54m bid to help homeless
Fund will support families living in emergency motel accommodation
People holding on to homes “by their fingernails” will be kept off the streets thanks to $54 million of government funding, community groups say. Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi and Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni yesterday announced new funding for a series of programmes aimed at helping people with addictions, mental health needs and criminal histories keep their accommodation.
About $31m will be spent over four years on 67 intensive case managers at the Ministry of Social Development, who will help families living in emergency motel accommodation.
Another $16m will go towards social services to help the same groups. It’s expected the work will help about 1500 of the 1900 people getting emergency special needs grants. Sepuloni said the plan was a short-term fix while the Government looked to build more public housing and would be the first in a series.
“MSD has identified a distinct group of people that face a range of complex issues that are a barrier to finding and keeping a home of their own, such as mental health and addictions, criminal history, or family violence,” she said.
“We need to stabilise their situations . . . For many vulnerable whanau and individuals one-on-one support
from an experienced, caring person is the best way to ensure they get the help they need.”
The Government is also spending $6.6m over two years to expand its Sustaining Tenancies programme.
The scheme run through community groups gives practical budget advice, property maintenance and mental health support to people in state housing in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and helps about 550 people a year.
Faafoi said the new money meant the programme could expand into five new regions and into the private housing market, assisting about 1550 once rolled out from November.
Downtown Community Ministry in central Wellington is one of the organisations that’s been part of the scheme, helping about 50 people a year. Director Stephanie McIntyre described the announcement as “music to the ears of community groups”.
“We can support people who sometimes have lengthy backgrounds of homelessness and are holding on by their fingernails to their flat. This makes the difference to enable them to not only sustain their flat, but thrive in their life,” she said.
McIntyre gave an example of a man who had been homeless for 12 years before the programme.
“He’s now had three years of stable tenancy. He’s a man who is very mentally unwell. He’s had 120 admissions to the mental health ward. This is enabling us to get the kind of engagement, traction, to see him through those phases and sustain his housings. And there’s many more examples we could give you.”
She said studies in New Zealand had shown it cost the Government $65,000 for someone to stay homeless, but $5000 to $10,000 can help someone keep their home.
The money comes on top of $197m put towards boosting a nationwide scheme aimed at getting people into housing. About 806 homes had been filled by that programme by June.
A University of Otago study in 2017 estimated there were 41,000 homeless people in New Zealand.