Homelessness: What Choice Is There and Who Chooses?
If you know where to look in many towns and cities around Aotearoa New Zealand, you will see homeless people—on the streets, in cars and tents, in parks and areas in and around town. In fact, very often you don’t need to look very hard. There is no more visceral sign of a broken community than the sight of increasing numbers of people who have no warm dry home to return to—a base from which to face the world in a modicum of comfort and security.
If you needed any further evidence of this situation from what you can see on our streets, you would find it in the data gathered by the National Homelessness Data Project. This project undertaken in conjunction with various community organisations, shows the extent and range of the problem.
The data unveils the hidden level of poverty and distress our whānau are suffering—as they couch surf, share in overcrowded houses, live in garages and cars, and yes, live on the street. The size of the problem can’t just be attributed to those who have ‘chosen’ this option or brought it on themselves as some might glibly assert.
A Homelessness Survey recently conducted by The Salvation Army and Community Housing Aotearoa highlights the growing scale of homelessness and the many barriers people face in accessing support and affordable housing. Key findings include:
- Homelessness is increasing across most of the 10 regions (from 15 organisations or centres surveyed), with no area reporting a decline.
- Access to emergency housing is becoming more difficult, with a noticeable rise in application denials—including instances where people have been excluded on the grounds of having “contributed to their own homelessness,” sometimes even when families with children are involved.
- A reduction in emergency housing supply is leaving many people without immediate options during times of crisis.
- A lack of wraparound support—such as mental health and addiction services, financial mentoring, and basic living skills—is making it harder for people to secure and maintain tenancies.
Frontline community workers described a level of desperation among people trying to access affordable housing.
Calls to move homeless people from the retail areas of the street is something many councils will wrestle with. It’s true that many of us can feel unsafe or at least uncomfortable in these spaces, even if there is no aggressive or confronting behaviour.
But one thing we mustn’t do is push our whānau off the street—and out of our consciousness—unless we are offering an enduring housing solution. Homelessness is a collective failure we cannot or should not try to erase.
We need to bring the issue of homelessness out into the open. Every effort needs to be made—with significant government involvement and investment—to understand the problem, quantify it, and take concrete steps to address it here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
As the Homelessness Survey identifies, current government policies are inadequate and have been fuelling this crisis.
The National Homelessness Data Project is calling for:
- A review of the current restrictions and rules around emergency housing grants.
- Investment in evidence-based housing and homelessness programmes that address both immediate need and long-term stability.
- Improved and sustained national data collection on homelessness to build a clearer picture of needs and outcomes.
- A commitment to a long-term, bipartisan national housing and homelessness strategy, grounded in Te Tiriti principles and supported by sustained funding.
It isn’t the homeless who made a ‘choice’ that created this problem. It is up to us, as a nation, to focus our efforts on meeting this most basic human need. We have the resources—and with the right will and planning, it is eminently solvable.
We just need to make the choice to see that all our whānau have a safe, warm and dry place to live in.
Lt. Colonel Ian Hutson
Mission Officer, Research and Justice Stream – Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit
The Salvation Army