Council gives $50k to help rough sleepers
The New Plymouth District Council has approved $50,000 to help the Taranaki Retreat connect with and assist a growing number of rough sleepers in the city.
The funding, which would come out of the council’s Agility Fund, was unanimously voted for at a meeting last week.
Council strategic housing lead Rachel Lishman told the meeting there had been more than 50 complaints about rough sleepers from concerned members of the business community during the 12 months to the end of March.
That was up on the 11 complaints council had received in the previous year.
Lishman said the funding would go towards the $164,270 annual cost of providing intensive support for the rough sleepers.
The Taranaki Retreat, a suicide prevention centre which was founded in 2017 by Jamie and Suzy Allen, had managed to raise $70,000.
The additional council funding would allow up to 20 people to benefit from the scheme, which aimed to provide an outreach service and support pathway for the rough sleeping community through inter-service collaboration.
Lishman said the overall aim was to assist individuals to address challenges in their lives and ultimately be supported into accommodation.
The project would be delivered in three phases, starting with a collaboration of agenciesto identify just how many rough sleepers needed help in the city.
Rough sleepers, or those described as homeless, have been left with nowhere to seek help after the New Plymouth Emergency Shelter was forced to close its doors in December after 47 years of providing beds.
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom said it was hugely disappointing that central Government had made the regulations for emergency shelters too tough for operators yet had done nothing in the funding space to help those affected.
He did not believe it should be left to council to fund solutions for those affected but believed it had an obligation to help because it was affecting a growing number of people in the city.
Councillor Tony Bedford said while he supported the funding he believed it should be helping not just those rough sleepers in New Plymouth: “We have
got people sleeping under the bridge in Waitara,” he said, before imploring council to help find a solution for the whole district.
Councillor Murray Chong was also critical of a lack of response from central Government to find a solution and urged council to put more pressure on the region’s MPs to do more to address the issue.
Lishman said one of the major problems those behind the project had was not knowing what funding would be available from the Government to help address the issue until the Budget was delivered at the end of the month.
“Local government and non-government agencies are working to identify the number of rough sleepers needing accommodation to make a case for central Government support,” she said.
“However, this will take some time and the outcome is not guaranteed.”
A report to council said several other stakeholders had and would be approached to participate in the project, including Toi Foundation, PARS, police, Kainga Ora, Roderique Hope Emergency Housing Trust, The Salvation Army, Tui Ora and Women’s Refuge.