Winter solution for rough sleepers

Social Housing Minister Amy Adams says you’d have to go back a long way to find a time when there weren’t New Zealanders sleeping rough.

‘‘I’m absolutely admitting there’s housing need in New Zealand,’’ said Adams, who yesterday announced the Government had secured an additional 870 emergency housing places for Kiwis.

Those places - available to people in need for about 12 weeks will house about 10,000 New Zealanders a year.

The Government is on track to have 1598 places available at any one time by the end of next month to ensure housing is available for as many as possible over the winter months.

‘‘I hate to say it but there’s always been situations where there are people sleeping rough ...

‘‘We would like to see every New Zealander in a safe and secure sleeping arrangement but at the same time you’d have to go

"We don't want people camping in living rooms, hanging out in garages, sleeping in cars while they wait for a social house.'' Social Housing Minister Amy Adams

back a long long way to find a time where there was no-one with some housing issues in New Zealand,’’ Adams said.

An ‘‘ambitious target’’ of finding 2150 emergency housing places has been set.

Adams said, with 1598 places to be made available by June when winter starts to bite, the Government would still have ‘‘some way to go’’.

‘‘The reason I said it’s an ambitious target is because of the speed we’re trying to bring more than 2000 houses like this, fully set up ... with the social support and the providers who are able to work with and support the tenants.

‘‘Just putting people in a house without support we know is not likely to be effective. To get all of that to market in little more than a year that’s what makes it ambitious,’’ she said.

One of the homes made available for social housing, which Adams visited in Porirua yesterday, is part of Housing New Zealand stock that is ‘‘not suitable for long-term housing’’.

‘‘They’re the wrong configuration for what we need here in this community, so we’ve taken these three-bedroom homes and worked with Emerge Aotearoa, an established housing provider.

‘‘They’ve taken on the house, furnished it with beds, couches, linen, cups, plates, everything you need so you can turn up with whatever you have and be safe here and secure.’’

Considering last winter there were almost none of these types of emergency housing places, Adams said, it’s a ‘‘very fast pace of development’’.

Adams said the stretched housing market in Auckland had made finding new places ‘‘challenging’’.

‘‘There’s absolutely housing pressures in Auckland, we know that.

‘‘When you’re building houses it’s not an overnight thing,’’ she said.

More social housing needed to be built - the number has escalated from about 66,000 homes to 72,400.

‘‘There’s always been a wait time to get people into social housing ... we’re seeing increasing need for emergency housing.’’

Adams said traditionally there hadn’t been a lot of assistance for people on the waiting list for social housing but the 12-week emergency housing places changed that.

‘‘We don’t want people camping in living rooms, hanging out in garages, sleeping in cars while they wait for a social house.’’