A Capital Letter: Wellington’s plan to end homelessness reads more like a wishlist

Wellington City councillors have directed officials to come up with a new strategy to end homelessness. Photo / Brett Phibbs

OPINION

The Wellington City Council has again announced it wants to end homelessness after already trying to do this by 2020 and failing.

It’s hard to imagine the council holds the secret to solving a problem that has become entrenched in our society but here we are, again.

On the face of it, the council’s latest housing action plan reads more like an ideological wish list than a meaningful blueprint.

Councillors have directed officials to come up with a new strategy to end homelessness as part of the action plan in time for Long-Term Plan considerations next year.

A press release describes the former strategy, Te Mahana, as having “expired”.

Te Mahana was launched in 2014 with the goal of eliminating homelessness by 2020. It failed to achieve this ambitious goal with the problem actually getting worse over that time, not better.

The council has spent $3.3 million on homelessness through grants and contracts over the past decade.

But council documents show a review is under way into the “effectiveness of those financial contributions to understand the impact of the council’s investment in homelessness prevention and response”.

As Environment and Infrastructure Committee chairwoman, councillor Tamatha Paul is taking the lead on housing. Paul is also the Green Party candidate for the Wellington Central electorate in the upcoming general election.

So what makes her think they have the answers to ending homelessness?

Paul said it was because the council was one of the biggest supporters of the Wellington City Mission, which was confident homelessness could be eliminated.

To be fair, the City Mission is making good progress, including the country’s first “wet house”. Soon to be opened, it will cater for homeless people dealing with severe alcohol addiction.

Paul said it was even more morally unacceptable for the council not to have a homelessness plan after the fire that killed five men at the Loafers Lodge hostel.

“If I was a member of the public looking at what has happened and then I go on to the council website and see that our plan expired three years ago, I would be pissed off.”

Paul rejected the idea that it was misleading to set a goal of ending homelessness completely.

“We need a goal and I think the scale of the issue can be solved when we work with other partners.”

As council officials are yet to figure out what needs to be done to actually end homelessness, it’s not yet known how much it will cost.

Then there is the council’s apartment conversion scheme, Te Kāinga. The council enters into long-term leases with commercial building owners and developers to provide new affordable housing for people on medium to lower incomes.

Councillors have “reaffirmed” their commitment to a target of 1000 affordable units either delivered or under contract by June 2026.

They did this knowing the target is in doubt due to a challenging inflationary and lending environment.

Wellington City Council chief planning officer Liam Hodgetts said it was a stretch target.

“It’s councillors telling us: ‘We want you to try as hard as you can to get more housing’.”

The same press release also said the efficiency of the consenting processes will be improved to support supply growth in the private market.

This glosses over the fact the council has been struggling for years now just to issue building consents within the statutory timeframe of 20 working days.

Engineers have been withdrawing their services due to the risk of being drawn into third-party claims and their inability to get insurance. The council has also accused Kāinga Ora of poaching its staff in a “short-sighted” and “aggressive” recruitment scheme.

Hodgetts described the timeframe as a “blunt tool” - it’s within 20 days whether someone wants to build a deck or a multimillion-dollar convention centre. Wellington also has seismic and topography challenges which can make some consents more challenging.

There are some more tangible things in the plan like a pilot rental inspection service (although it’s not known how many staff are needed and how much it will cost).

Council officials will inspect rentals and pass on information to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who can have the power to take enforcement action.

Overall, the housing action plan feels like a lot of talk and nice ideas.

But Paul said officials first needed to know what councillors’ aspirations are for housing, so they could bake them into the Long-Term Plan and make them a reality.

Importantly, there needed to be a vote around the council table on these ideas early on in the process, she said.

“The fact that we did [this] gives some confidence to officers that’s the direction we want to go in.”

Only time will tell how political wills square with reality, but if past ambitions are anything to go by, ending homelessness is a tall order for the council.

• Senior Wellington journalist Georgina Campbell’s fortnightly column looks closely at issues in the capital.