Focus and clarity were the words in my mind when I sat down to write this piece on homelessness and ‘Streeties’, reflecting on news from Hamilton City Council’s April Community Committee meeting, and nationwide discussion.
Margaret Evans
The meeting’s public forum that day included Te Whare Korowai Christian Night Shelter’s Te Rito Awhi Hub Coordinator Lisa and an un-named ‘Streetie’ who gave first-hand accounts (within the strictly observed five minutes allowed). They brought focus to the thousands of hours and words that have poured out of government agencies and social enterprises in recent years (and an acknowledgment from Mayor Tim MacIndoe, a shelter trustee and former chair).
Another highlight came from longest-serving councillor Angela O’Leary’s recalling the 2014 City Safe initiatives and Wise Group’s The People’s Project to end homelessness. Other councillors were concerned that this year, the 50 people at the Council’s hui with government and community agencies “did not know each other”. And no Streeties were there.
Back in 2014, a Parliamentary Library Research Paper concluded homelessness had been a “continual issue”. To quote: “Factors that can be linked to homelessness include unaffordable accommodation, poverty and unemployment, mental health issues, addictions, traumatic life events, convictions and imprisonment along with the use of insecure accommodation. The severely housing deprived are predominately children and young adults, ethnic minorities, members of sole-parent families and less educated. Health problems are common among the homeless. Addressing homelessness requires a multi-level and faceted approach including prevention and early intervention. A key measure is the provision of affordable accommodation.”
So what’s different?
Hamilton once had a Housing Resource Centre (Julie Nelson), nurtured the Habitat for Humanity model (former deputy mayor John Gallagher), promoted community housing and ‘Housing First’ (Te Runanga of Kirikiriroa’s Mere Balzer), and the mayoral office fostered interagency relationships.
How the CBD could look.
‘Streeties’ are found everywhere and have been for decades (centuries?). Just one segment of the homeless. The difference today is behaviours – too often impacted by drugs (including alcohol), and hinting violence. There’s ample evidence that city centres are their place of choice, and Streeties can add colour and chat, even music (which is why the street pianos were introduced). But disorder problems must be identified, not self-promoting social enterprises and generalisations.
Te Rito Awhi’s Hub has been operating only a few weeks and I’m hopeful their ‘engagement’ will be more valuable for the truly homeless and jobless than another hui.
Some of us have also suggested the proposed CBD ‘Guardians’ project could be extended into a CBD Task Force Green Group to tidy it up, creating jobs and apprenticeships. That could and should include interaction with the Streeties (and liaison with the new Police role as well as mental health services). And perhaps another ‘boarding house, or ‘hostel’ in some of those many empty CBD buildings?
The new $130m 64-bed mental health unit at Waikato Hospital is due to open later this year (just four more beds than Henry Bennett Centre). As well, there’s the new police powers to move on the ‘disorderly’ (even though they are already able to do that), and a new focus on the issue of drugs.
Council official Erin Bates exemplified the need to audit and prune before ticking the new, explaining that “lots of strategies and action plans” were now being replaced with an “overarching strategy and plan being developed” and to include “shared initiatives”.
I’m reminded by an encounter I once had with the Lord Chief Justice (of England and Wales), fascinated by the quantity of new legislation passing through this tiny country of ours, about ten times Westminster’s. And that means we need to know what’s working and what’s not.
That brings in brevity – as in British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1940 instructions to his war cabinet, so relevant in today’s information avalanche.
PS: A highlight from the YouTube archive of the April meeting, was the dispatch of deputy chair Anna Casey-Cox to the staff backbench (rather than beside chair Emma Pike). The 40-year-old chamber’s horse-shoe seating could not accommodate the expanded 17-member top team (with Mangai Maori retained); a grand excuse to find another refurbishment budget? Or perhaps that small group discussions are better?
Hamilton City Council’s April Community Committee meeting
