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from Plenty March 2020
Homelessness in Aotearoa is no longer confined to our biggest cities.
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Back in the day, a small number of local characters became well-known street personalities to everyone working in our city centres, but those days are gone.
Homelessness here has followed international trends, taking various forms, from rough sleeping or couch surfing, to families living in cars or being stuck in emergency motel accommodation for months on end. Cities and towns up and down the country are grappling with this issue and the Bay of Plenty is no exception. Now a new initiative in Tauranga is taking a very different approach to the issue, so Plenty caught up with The People’s Project to find out more.
WORDS ANDY TAYLOR // IMAGES SUPPLIED
The sad reality of an increasingly large homeless problem became evident in Tauranga in around 2015. From the printed page to social media, everyone had an opinion, and to be sure some of the initial responses to the issue weren’t well considered. But ultimately the Tauranga community came together to try and find a positive solution, and the result was Our Community Project – or OCP – a working group of stakeholders from across the region including Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty District Councils, Tauranga Moana Men’s Night Shelter, The Salvation Army, Tauranga Community Housing Trust, Te Tuinga Whanau, SocialLink, Housing New Zealand, Ministry of Social Development, Bay of Plenty District Health Board, Te Puni Kōkiri, Police and iwi Ngāti
Ranginui. Steph O’Sullivan, chief executive of Ngāti
Ranginui at that time, was the driving force behind it.
After researching what has worked elsewhere, and trying to get a better understanding of the size of the problem (a Tauranga City Council initiative counted 80 people sleeping rough throughout the area in 2018), OCP reached out to non-governmental organisation Wise Group, which had launched The People’s Project, a unique approach to solving homelessness, in Hamilton some years earlier.
“At the start of The People’s Project in Hamilton, 80 people were identified as sleeping rough on the streets,” said Wise Group’s joint chief executive Julie Nelson.
“Today, only two of those 80 people remain unhoused. The Project’s success has made a positive and lasting difference to the Hamilton landscape, with Police reporting a reduction in inner-city crime and Hamilton City Council’s surveys reporting businesses and the public feel safer. There are a lot fewer people sleeping rough and begging and public education has restored empathy back into the community.”
In Tauranga, OCP and The People’s Project worked in partnership to find a sustainable source of funding to bring the Project’s service to the city. In February 2018 this became a reality, as part of a broader rollout of Housing First across the country which saw the Government come to the party with funding. Housing First was coming to Tauranga.
The People’s Project team
The Housing First approach has been successful in many places overseas as well as here in New Zealand largely because it recognises that it is easier for people to address issues such as past trauma, mental health and drug and alcohol use once they are housed. It is an approach that grew out of the work of Dr Sam Tsemberis, a clinicalcommunity psychologist on the faculty of Columbia University Medical Centre’s psychiatry department. While traditional responses to homelessness relied heavily on emergency housing and acute medical care, Tsemberis’ Housing First takes a very different approach. In short, the priority is to quickly move people into appropriate housing and then immediately provide wrap-around services to support them. It’s an approach backed by more than 20 years of evidence and is proven to have ended homelessness for more than 80% of people who engage with the programme.
“Giving someone a home is so much more than just a roof over their heads,” Julie said. “People say things like, ‘Thanks for not giving up on me, you don’t know what it means to have the keys to my own home’. It’s very special and it makes what is often intensive and challenging work incredibly fulfilling.”
PLENTY.CO.NZ // POUTŪ-TE-RANGI 2020 “...Businesses and the public feel safer. There are a lot fewer people sleeping rough and begging and public education has restored empathy back into the community.”
Housing First is not just about housing however. Every person seeking assistance receives wraparound support, using an individualised ‘one plan’ approach that means all services working with a person know the plan and work together to help that person achieve their goals.
“Without doubt, houses end homelessness. But Housing First is an enduring support for as long as it is needed to help people sustain their tenancies – whether that is supporting access to health, addictions or budgeting services, or mentoring a relationship with a landlord – whatever it takes to support the person to be able to stay in their home,” Julie said.
“The goal of Housing First is to end homelessness - not to manage it.”
Making a house a home in Tauranga
On 6 June 2018, The People’s Project opened its Tauranga city service with psychologist and former Tauranga City Council community development advisor Simone Cuers leading a team with a range of backgrounds in social work, counselling, psychology, support work, lived experience and law enforcement.
Simone said 10 people were waiting outside the office before it opened on that first day, and 22 ultimately came through the doors, with those who had been sleeping rough very malnourished, tired and unwell. Nearly two years down the track, the team has seen more than 350 people. More than 70 are registered for the service and 55 people have been supported into homes of their own.
From the outset, the service’s biggest challenge was finding housing. “There were, and still are, a very small number of 1-2-bedroom dwellings available on the rental market, and there were, and still are, long waits for state housing in Tauranga,” she says.
“At the moment, we only need 30-40 more houses, but because Tauranga is one of the most expensive places in New Zealand, this is a struggle. The majority of our clients are single people who can afford a maximum weekly rent of approximately $320; that is a onebedroom flat, there are few properties in that price range, and demand is high.”
The team works with public, private and community landlords to find housing stock. Around one-quarter of the people who have been housed to date are in housing from Kāinga Ora (formerly Housing New Zealand) and social housing provider Accessible Properties Ltd.
“All our clients are on the register for state housing, but demand for state housing in Tauranga is incredibly high and the number of state housing spaces available in the city has not kept up with demand,” Simone said.
Which is where private landlords and agents come in. More than three quarters of the people who have been housed are in private rental properties. Simone says the team is often asked by the public what they can do to help homeless people, and she is resolute on this: “Help us find more housing for the people we’re working with.” Tauranga Caseload
- June 2018 to 31 January 2020 -
55 ACTIVE CLIENTS
36 PEOPLE HOUSED
% 91 REMAIN HOUSED
To make this easier, The People’s Project has a compelling offer for landlords through its relationship with community housing provider LinkPeople. Property owners and agents can simply sign up and in return they are guaranteed 52 weeks market-rate rent, guaranteed repairs to any property damage and highly experienced tenancy managers.
First National Real Estate’s Genna Short is one supporter who has come on board. “The clients The People’s Project put forward have been thoroughly vetted,” says Genna, “the rent is always paid on time, and the properties are wellmaintained because if any repairs are needed, the case manager is on the phone to me right away. They also visit tenants regularly and support them to keep their homes clean and tidy. Quite simply, The People’s Project has made my job easy,” Genna said.
Sadly, Simone notes, poverty is the real issue for the people the team works with; it is not uncommon for clients living in private rental properties to have little more than $40 left to live on once they’ve paid their rent and bills. This, she says, is why partnerships between the state, community housing and private landlords were even more critical for people in Housing First services, because they allowed clients to receive subsidies which kept their rents at around 25% of their incomes.
While there is undoubtedly more work to be done in our community, it’s clear that Housing First works and they are seeing the results – day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year.
PLENTY.CO.NZ // POUTŪ-TE-RANGI 2020 “Giving someone a home is so much more than just a roof over their heads.”
“One person we work with was homeless, living in parks around Mauao for more than 16 years; he recently celebrated his first-year anniversary in his own home. Another person is interested in finding employment now that their home is stable, others are reconnecting with whānau, building their resilience through connections and relationships, and people are seriously committed to looking after their homes,” Simone says.
“To see the change in someone who has been living on the streets for many years, to being housed for several months is amazing. We see a lot of pride in how our clients care for their homes, and we own a lawn mower which clients enjoy using to mow their lawns regularly,” she says.
“In the same way it took a collaborative community approach to bring The People’s Project to Tauranga, it takes a community to end homelessness. One service cannot do this alone. The support The People’s Project has received from central and local government agencies and local service providers has been key to what has been achieved in Tauranga to date,” Simone says.
With results like this, there’s a real sense of hope that by working together as a community homelessness will be rare overall, brief when it occurs and never a way of life. And if there’s one thing we can aspire to in the Bay, it’s that.
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