Whitiora School roll drops as families leave emergency housing in Hamilton
A school roll dropping by dozens is a side-effect of families shifting out of motels and into more permanent homes.
Hamilton’s Whitiora School had an influx of pupils as emergency housing numbers soared, due to its spot next to a motel strip.
But principal Te Haumoana Biddle has noticed “a huge difference” recently, as efforts ramp up to shift towards alternatives such as transitional housing and private rentals.
A 33% drop in emergency housing households was cited by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in the year to December 2023.
For Whitiora’s roll the “biggest” jump in numbers, to 320 pupils, was in 2023, Biddle said.
By the start of 2024 there was a drop from 300 to 250, which coincided with the decrease in emergency housing (EH) households.
“A lot of our enrolments have been through emergency housing and that’s fine, we do what we need to for our kids and their whānau,” Biddle said.
“Pre-covid we only had two or three who came to school from EH, but once Covid-19 hit the amount of families living in EH was huge.”
The school was seen as the “hub of the community” working hand in hand with council, local churches and social service providers to support children in the area that were residing in motels.
The children were treated like whānau at Whitiora School, he said, and they’re “beautiful kids” he wants to see supported appropriately as families make housing shifts.
Hamilton had the second highest emergency housing population after the Auckland super-city with 507 households.
And $291m in emergency housing special needs grants were given out in the city between the start of 2020 and the end of February 2024, according to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).
The coalition government, under their 100-day plan, committed to getting people out of emergency housing and into alternatives like private rentals, public or transitional housing.
It was an issue Hamilton West MP and Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing), Tama Potaka was focused on addressing from both “a fiscal perspective and whānau perspective”.
“Waikato is no exception, and Hamilton has one of the highest rates of emergency housing use in the country,” he said.
Potaka had previously pointed to the previous government spending about $340m a year on emergency housing with “thousands of children consigned to grow up in motels”.
The children, being so “resilient”, will often make do because they don’t have any other choice, Biddle said.
But supporting families as they transitioned out of motels was essential for protecting the children’s hauora or wellbeing, Biddle said, so they could continue to thrive regardless of where they move to.
“These kids, they mean hope, they are the next generation who are going to make those positive changes for themselves and their whānau and for their community, it’s a privilege to be able provide pathways for our tamariki.”
The number of emergency housing households dropped by a third in the year to December 2023, MSD said, going from 756 to 507.
The introduction of fast-tracked social housing for whānau with children who have spent longer than 12 weeks in emergency housing is likely to drive further reductions in its use, MSD said.
Hamilton was not an isolated case with a national shift away from EH, while the number of households and children in emergency housing has been steadily falling for more than a year.
The latest data for children in Hamilton emergency housing showed a 27% decrease, from 711 in December 2022 to 516 children December 2023.
Hamilton also had 4000 Kāinga Ora homes in place or in the pipeline with local leaders backing the urgent bid to beat the housing crisis.
“We know emergency housing is not an ideal place to be raising children,” MSD Regional Commissioner for Waikato Tracey Smith said.
Whānau leaving emergency housing might move into a range of accommodation types, from private rentals to public or transitional housing.