House unit makes point

Housing campaigners have taken the issue of homelessness into their own hands by placing a unit on vacant land in South Auckland.

The organisation Build Up Emergency Housing placed the one-bedroom unit on a lot in Manukau to pressure the Auckland Council to build more emergency housing.

The unit also served as a ‘‘demonstration project’’ of how the lack of housing could be addressed through innovative design, the campaigners said.

The 24-square-metre, plywood house was largely pre-assembled at Ormiston Junior College in Flat Bush and placed on the section.

Build Up spokesman Alan Johnson said the group believed homelessness in Auckland ‘‘is going to get worse before it gets better’’.

The previous government did ‘‘a lot’’ to provide emergency accommodation but it was ‘‘turning out to be semi-permanent accommodation’’, he said.

‘‘We think a whole lot more can be done.’’

Johnson said the council should construct small housing units on vacant land it owns and let them sit there for up to five years.

The empty section in Manukau was an example, he said.

‘‘This site is massive and what use is being made of it? We reckon there are dozens of sites like this around Auckland which are unused.

‘‘The council says they’ve got plans for them but they’re happy to let grass grow on them [while] people live on the streets,’’ Johnson said.

‘‘We say give us access to that land for five years and don’t charge us costs for consent fees, and let us off the connection fees that Watercare charges.’’

Johnson said the Housing First Auckland initiative, which was launched in March 2017 by the previous government and Auckland mayor Phil Goff, was ‘‘good, but it doesn’t build houses’’.

It has the goal of ending homelessness in the city and began with a two-year pilot aimed at getting 472 rough sleepers into permanent housing.

The initiative received $3.7 million from the previous government and another $1m from the council.

‘‘The thing that’s going to cure homelessness is houses,’’ Johnson said.

‘‘Even modest little things like this [the unit in Manukau].

‘‘We think we can get it up for $50,000 or maybe $60,000 if we use solar power and recycled water.’’

The unit has since been donated and moved to Te Puea Memorial Marae in Ma¯ ngere Bridge, South Auckland, to assist with its work to house the homeless.

It is being completed with