City’s ‘streetie’ numbers fall
Christchurch rough sleeper numbers have plummeted a year after the first head count found 215 on the streets.
One social agency boss believes the number of ‘‘streeties’’ in the city centre could be as low as 20. Some on the street say it could be fewer than a dozen. Many since the last count are in transitional or emergency housing while they wait for permanent placements. A combined approach aimed at the chronically homeless is credited with having the most significant effect.
Housing First – an initiative led by the Christchurch Methodist Mission but run in partnership with a halfdozen other agencies – has since put 31 people into homes across the city after starting earlier this year.
Garry Dickey is one of those people. After a month in his new home, he was having a rough time sleeping, but is happy not to be sleeping rough, as he did for seven years.
‘‘It took me a while to get used to the bed. I kept falling off,’’ he said with a chuckle. ‘‘I’m not used to the comfort.’’
Before Dickey moved into his flat, he would sleep all over the place. The YMCA. Couch surfing. Seven weeks in a motel. On the footpath outside the Ibis hotel.
During a walk around the city centre this week, The Press reporters found two rough sleepers – a couple. They were not begging at the time but had a shopping cart with belongings, including sleeping bags.
Two days later, it was more difficult to find rough sleepers or beggars. None were spotted on a walk from Cathedral Square to the end of Colombo St. A once busy under-bridge spot had two sleeping setups but it was unclear how long they had been left unattended.
But fewer streeties does not mean Christchurch homelessness has been resolved.
Of the 31 Housing First clients, 13 are in Housing New Zealand properties, and 13 more with the O¯ tautahi Community Housing Trust (OCHT). Both agencies have housed people through their own programmes. Some have died.
Dickey said many were going ‘‘couch-to-couch, bed-to-bed’’, in transitional or emergency housing.
Christchurch City Missioner Matthew Mark put the number of streeties at about 20 and said it was staying fairly consistent.
‘‘So as quickly as we’re finding accommodation for someone, we’re seeing that same space is being backfilled onto the streets as well.’’
Housing First team leader Nicola Fleming said another 10 people were on the books.
About 65 people were staying each night at the Salvation Army Addington Lodge, director Glenn Dodson said. That figure was about the same as this time last year.
‘‘Most of them are coming to us having just lost their housing, and before they end up on the street,’’ he said. Most of his clients did not come from the central city.
Fleming agreed that there were fewer on the streets, but said the actual number was ‘‘just impossible to count’’.
Collective for the Homeless coordinator Brenda Lowe-Johnson says quite a few had ‘‘hidden away’’. She had housed more than 400 people in four years.
More than 30 had been put in homes since May.