Council tackles homelessness
An acute shortage of homes is causing homelessness in a city that was once at the very heart of state housing in New Zealand.
The Hutt City Council is implementing a ‘‘Homelessness Strategy’’ to address homelessness in Lower Hutt – where, in 1956, 65 per cent of homes were government-built.
Many of those houses were in Taita and Naenae, suburbs that are now at the forefront of homelessness.
There are 367 households on the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) waiting list for a home in Lower Hutt. Special needs grants, issued by the MSD for emergency housing in Lower Hutt motels or hotels, increased sharply from 234 in March 2017 to 719 in December, last year.
During the December quarter, housing grants totalled $1.9 million across the Wellington region, of which $1.23m was used in Lower Hutt. In Wellington City, twice the size of Lower Hutt, there were just 355 grants totalling $312,000.
Moses and Angie Atak can vouch for how stressful having nowhere to live is. Refugees from South Sudan, they came to Lower Hutt after initially being placed in Palmerston North.
The family were given accommodation by a Christian group in Stokes Valley, but it was only short-term. When they had to move, they found there were no options, despite Angie being nine months pregnant with their eighth child.
During a stay in the motel, Angie gave birth to a son. Moses said the situation was very stressful.
Moses was preparing the family to live out of a van when Housing New Zealand found them a home in Titahi Bay.
Although they were grateful to have somewhere to live, Moses said the property was not ideal. Ten people in a three-bedroom house with one toilet and and no dining area was difficult. The children all had colds and sore throats, and the house was cold.
The family want to return to Lower Hutt, where there is a small South Sudanese community.
Acting regional commissioner David Ensor said Work and Income had been working with the Ataks since November. It had been hard to find a suitable house with the housing stock in the wider Wellington region in short supply and under extremely high demand, Ensor said.
Hutt City research and policy advisor John Pritchard said the situation the Atak family faced was all too common in Lower Hutt.
Although the term homeless was often associated with people living on the streets, that was not the case in Lower Hutt, he said. There were a significant number of people living in garages, cars and hostels and on couches who had no way of acquiring ‘‘safe and secure’’ long-term housing.
Exact numbers were hard to pin down because of the transient nature of being homeless, he said, but one thing that was clear was the reason. ‘‘The underlying causes of homelessness are structural – poverty, a lack of affordable housing, inequality and government policy.’’
Rising rents, mental health issues, family violence, alcohol and financial stress all contributed to the problem, Pritchard said.
Council strategy and planning manager Wendy Moore said the Homelessness Strategy was about the council working with social agencies to make sure the homeless received the best possible service available.
The council was also working to make sure there were more houses being built by moving to free up land.
The Rev Martin Robinson, who has been outspoken in criticising Housing NZ, said it was good to see the council take a positive interest in housing. The issues were complex, and there were a lot of vulnerable people needing help, he said.
Earlier this month, Stuff reported that the nationwide waiting list for social housing had reached 10,000 – almost twice the number from a year earlier.
Across the region, the number of households on the waiting list are: Wellington 386, Lower Hutt 367, Kapiti 89, Masterton 42, Porirua 221, Upper Hutt 111.