‘They are invisible in life and invisible in death’

Advocates for the homeless estimate one person dies roughly every two weeks on the streets of Auckland.

But there are no official figures and for the most part their deaths are going largely unnoticed, except by those closest to them.

The chief executive of social agency Lifewise, Moira Lawler, said there was no national body keeping tabs on how the homeless were living and dying. “At the moment, the appalling truth is unless you are the whanau of that person who died, there is no reason to care.

“We don’t remember people who died on the street, because we didn’t know them in the first place, we always counted them as invisible.

If someone died on the streets of hypothermia, it’s quite clear why they died. It’s hypothermia caused by homelessness. Darrin Hodgetts, Massey University societal psychologist

“They are invisible in life and invisible in death.”

She said tracking morbidity and mortality within the homeless community could help generate understanding around why people were dying and what was needed to be done to help.

New Zealand is one of 15 OECD countries that do not have a nationwide strategy to deal with homelessness. It also does not have a single entity that measures the numbers of homeless — nor the numbers who die on the streets.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said it did not collect such information and after “further investigation neither Coronial Services or

the Health Quality and Safety Commission holds this information”.

Police were unable to collate figures around deaths on the street, neither was the Ministry of Social Development, and the Coroner’s Office was only able to provide a piece of the puzzle through 130 reports it released looking at deaths of those classified as being of “no fixed abode” since 2012.

A Herald investigation into the reports from 2012 to 2018 found 42 people who died were more likely than not homeless.

In Australia, agencies working with the homeless community have called for homelessness to be listed as an official cause of death on the coroner’s report, as one way of measuring mortality. Though it’s not listed as an official cause of death on reports in New Zealand, a Coronial Services spokeswoman said if it was a factor “this is considered as part of the inquiry and detailed in the findings”.

Massey University societal psychologist Darrin Hodgetts said he couldn’t understand why homelessness couldn’t be put down as a cause of death.

“If someone died on the streets of hypothermia, it’s quite clear why they died. It’s hypothermia caused by homelessness.”

Hodgetts said finding a way to get exact numbers was tough.

“The problem is you are dealing with a transient population, it’s a nightmare statistically, the numbers are not as reliable.

“I’m not sure, in a fragmented landscape like ours, if that is practical . . . is more research our priority or is getting more money into services our priority?”

Housing Minister Phil Twyford said the Government’s current focus was on getting more reliable data around the numbers of homeless on a regular basis, before it began to consider other measures.

“I think most Kiwis would regard it as intolerable that we have 4000-plus New Zealanders living without shelter in situations of extraordinary risk. We have to do something about it.”