Auckland youth homelessness: What it’s like to be young and living on the street

Former homeless youth, Te Kahukoka-Rose Harawira Yelash and Mars Cook. Photo / Jason Dorday

From sleeping on a playground slide aged 13 because home isn’t safe, to developing PTSD from the hours of Work and Income telephone hold music you endure weekly to resecure your emergency housing, this is homelessness for young people in Auckland. Cherie Howie spoke to two rangatahi about what it’s like to be young - and homeless.

They’re built to help kids master balance and co-ordination, and to understand how their bodies fit in the world.

But as safe places to sleep for a 13-year-old who feels she has nowhere else to go? Not so much.

Still, the slide at her local playground in Avondale seemed as good a place as any for Te Kahukoka-Rose Harawira Yelash to sleep the night she became homeless.

Or, rather, to pass the hours.

Former homeless person Te Kahukoka-Rose Harawira Yelash. She was homeless from ages 13 to 17, and is supporting charity Kick Back, which offers help for young people in need. Photo / Jason Dorday

“It was a very stressful night - to be honest, I didn’t even sleep. I was up most of it purely because I was afraid”, Harawira Yelash says of that first night sleeping rough.

“I didn’t know where else to go. All the shops were closed. There was no one inside and the only place I felt safe was at the park, because no one would see me and no one could hurt me.

“I didn’t have many friends growing up so I had nowhere. I couldn’t couch-surf. So it was really hard. Cold too, [and] very lonely.”

And while her hideout proved safe that night, it wouldn’t always be the case as Harawira Yelash spent the next four years moving between foster homes, Oranga Tamariki youth residences and sleeping rough - at bus stops, in abandoned buildings, car parks and even inside empty homes up for sale.

“When I was 14 I experienced something really traumatic. I don’t speak about it, but there are things that happen and it’s sad because I don’t want other rangatahi [young people] having to go through that.

“And so I try my best to just keep using my voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice.”

Mars Cook also knows what it’s like to have nowhere to call home.

His experience is different to Harawira Yelash’s; nights on the street after he became homeless at 19 were few, rather he spent several months-long stints moving between mental health units, emergency housing and friends’ couches.

“I was just slipping through a bunch of cracks, and the social safety net was not good [enough] to catch people like me, unfortunately.”

But the outcome was the same, a sense of dislocation from society, of being let down by those supposed to be helping and deteriorating mental health that often made life feel not worth living.

He stopped counting after his suicide attempts reached 20, Cook says.

“I’m very lucky to be alive, and I’m very glad I’m alive.”

And although the 22-year-old has secure housing now, the past is a wound not easily healed.

“I think about it constantly”, he says of homelessness.

“Having your basic needs taken away from you over and over, it’s really hard to accept that it’s not going to happen again.

“That’s really why I care about this kaupapa [cause] so much, because I want to share all the skills I’ve picked up, and use them to inform us [in] helping people.”

Former homeless person, Mars Cook. Kick Back, in Karangahape Rd Auckland is further developing its outreach programme for young people in need. Photo / Jason Dorday

This kaupapa is The Front Door, an outreach and early intervention centre for homeless youth in central Auckland which opened last month, and with - advocates hope - much more to come.

One floor up on Karangahape Rd, the space is about the size of a primary school classroom, with a dream to eventually be open 24/7 and to include on-site access to healthcare, mental health services, housing support and advocacy, says youth advocate Aaron Hendry.

There are also plans for “soft spaces” on-site for homeless youth, and eventually access to nearby safe housing for up to five young people in immediate need.

Hendry and his wife, Summer, last year started the charity Kick Back to fill gaps they could see in the system for homeless youth.

The charity, with the support of Mana Services, Auckland Council, Foundation North and Sky City, is behind The Front Door project, he says.

“Believe it or not, there’s no central space to go to if you experience [youth] homelessness in the city, and so they’re often slipping through the cracks and sleeping rough … and right now the Government’s response is emergency accommodation, which [has] horrific stories.

“If we can actually engage in that moment of need, we can prevent a lot of harm from happening to young people.”

They hope to have talks underway by the end of the year about a pilot immediate - Hendry doesn’t like the word emergency - accommodation option within walking distance of The Front Door, which would be followed by the development of a “housing plan” for those in need within 48 hours.

“And then we actively work to get you to where you need to go, whether that’s referrals or that’s connecting with whānau or whatever, but you’ve got a safe place to work through that.

“One of the things our young people have told us a lot is the time frames [for finding stable accommodation] are really traumatising, like ‘You must go in seven days’, and you just cannot settle or think or plan.”

Youth in this context are generally considered those aged 16 to 24, but the definition has to be stretched for those who find themselves homeless without whānau or other support.

Kick Back co-ordinator Aaron Hendry. Photo / Jason Dorday

Nine years after she bunked down on a cold children’s slide, Harawira Yelash’s story is neither unique nor out of date.

“I’ve been in contact with some people this week about a 13-year-old who’s [homeless] in the city centre”, Hendry says.

“And we hear about 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds.”

So far at The Front Door, which is on a site known as The Hub, beginnings are humble. There are a few wooden benches and tables, a small kitchen for making hot drinks, donated snacks and two sets of skis fixed to the ceiling - courtesy of the most recent tenant, Hendry says.

They’ll be staying, slotting in as they do with the funky aesthetic young people have already been imprinting on the site, with splashes of hot pink paint and a wall filled with upbeat messages, a cluster of grey downtown high-rises and Auckland’s omnipresent Sky Tower in the background.

“Dream big”, “Hope” and “Kia Kaha”, they read.

And, starring twice, “Love is the way”.

It’s a message Harawira Yelash has embraced.

Among the many hardships of life on the street, the love from other young people sleeping rough was the one crack that let the light in.

“When you’re on the streets that’s all you can rely on. Those bonds will never end, and it’s purely because we had each other’s backs, and we love each other.

“Because at that point, we were all we had.”

Feelings of abandonment relating to whānau, bullying, and being “misled easily” were among challenges that led her to the streets, says Harawira Yelash, who is Ngāti Apa and Te Rarawa.

“I was lucky because I have my Nana and she raised me … until I became rebellious. I got caught up in the wrong things at the wrong time, hanging out with the wrong people, committed crimes that I don’t like to speak about, because that’s the past.

“But I do take responsibility for myself going down that pathway. I had no one to blame. It was just my own trauma and not having a solid foundation.”

She wound up in foster care, living in about 14 homes but “there was a lot of abuse in the homes”, Harawira Yelash says.

“I found it safer to be on the streets than in a foster home.”

There were also stints in Oranga Tamariki youth justice residences, where she celebrated her 14th and 16th birthdays.

Former homeless youth, Te Kahukoka-Rose Harawira Yelash and Mars Cook. Photo / Jason Dorday

When social workers found her back on the streets, they’d take her to a new foster home, but she never stayed.

“I’d just take the bag full of clothes, have a nice hot shower, eat the food and go.”

But fresh clothes, a clean body and a full belly can only last so long. The 22-year-old sighs as she remembers how she “stole to survive”.

“I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go to Winz, I wasn’t old enough … [and] you’re sent to Oranga Tamariki or different agencies that don’t actually do the mahi they need to do.”

The same went for clothes, she says.

“We’d just walk into The Warehouse, swap our clothes [for new ones], boom - out the door. That was the only way we’re gonna be able to have fresh clothes, and to be warm.

“There was a thrill in it … and it was okay [stealing] then because you’re young, you don’t care. But eventually it catches up. You become ashamed of who you are.”

She and other teen girls were usually able to get free tampons and pads from baskets at GPs or by giving fake addresses to get grocery parcels, but dealing with personal hygiene was always a challenge, especially at night.

“It was a struggle finding places to shower … and at night the public toilets shut so we had to do our business outside. It was very dehumanising. But where else are we gonna go?”

And on cold nights, when other people their age were snug in their beds, she and her friends only had each other to keep warm - and safe.

“A lot of the time we never had a blanket or pillow, so we just laid on one another, to keep each other warm.

“And I haven’t told many people, but during my time being homeless, I experienced a lot of sexual abuse … to this day I still haven’t healed, and I don’t think I ever will. We just learn to live with it.”

Cook found himself without somewhere to live after leaving home at 19.

“I don’t want to go into why, [but] I really needed to move out.”

But finding somewhere safe and which met his needs - he has autism and a physical disability - proved so challenging it severely affected his mental health, leading to multiple admissions to hospital mental health units as he cycled between the units and unstable housing in the community.

“Technically they’re not supposed to discharge you until you have stable housing, but they really do bend that definition.”

Other times he believed he was kept in the units - which he says are full of homeless people - after he was “mentally ready to go”, because he didn’t have housing.

“The core reason I was dealing with those mental health issues so severely was because I was homeless and I didn’t have support in the community, and while all this was going on we were going through the 2021 lockdowns.

“I didn’t have proper disability support, there weren’t people helping me get my groceries … and I had an untreated eating disorder. I wasn’t given the support I needed, and it really made me feel like there was no hope left.”

Around 100,000 people are considered homeless in New Zealand, which includes people sleeping rough but also those in emergency or overcrowded housing situations. Photo / 123rf

His months in emergency housing, surrounded by people with barely any social support, was “traumatic”.

“There’s a lot of interpersonal issues, drama, violence and drug use and it’s down to the fact these people aren’t being support by our society and the systems we have. It’s really not their fault as individuals.”

Frequently having to get his stay renewed, meant calling Work and Income’s main number - he didn’t have a direct contact for his case worker - and spending hours on hold, sometimes weekly.

“I’d get letters almost every week. And the owners of the motel would come to my door and be like, ‘We’re going to kick you out if you don’t sort this’.

“The music they play on hold at Winz has actually become a PTSD trigger for me. So I just don’t call them ever anymore.”

Cook and Harawira Yelash now both have stable homes, but many more young people remain on the streets or in precarious housing situations that don’t involve family groups.

Although the numbers aren’t clear, Hendry says.

“In the HUD (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) data, about 102.000 people experience homelessness under the way we define it in New Zealand, and roughly 50 per cent of those are young people or children.

“Some will be [part of] stable families, some will be in overcrowded situations. And our young people move around from couch surfing to sleeping rough and it’s quite fluid.”

But he suspected in Auckland there would be “upwards of hundreds” of homeless young people who don’t have the support of family.

A new paper from the OECD last month showed New Zealand has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world, with more than 2 per cent of New Zealanders recorded as being homeless by one definition, and based on the 2018 Census results - which may have worsened in the years since.

That’s the highest population percentage recorded of any country in the developed bloc being measured, although New Zealand’s broad definition of homelessness has helped to put it high up.

Our figures include refugees and asylum seekers who are looking for temporary accommodation, as well as victims of domestic violence, which most other countries don’t include. New Zealand’s data also included children and people living in “uninhabitable” housing.

His home, Cook says, isn’t perfect - there’s no window in the bedroom and it’s not as accessible as he needs.

“But as someone who had [housing] issues for three years, my bar is very low.”

It was reconnecting with friends that got him out of the situation he was in, and he wants to do the same for others, through The Front Door.

“I really believe so many of the problems we’ve got in society really need to be addressed with more connection, and community. We can’t just address everything with institutions, it just doesn’t work.

“[Here] we don’t blame the individual, because anyone can be homeless. It’s not your fault - it’s society’s responsibility to make sure you don’t have this happen to anybody.”

The turning point for Harawira Yelash came at 17, when she met Hendry, who helped her find a stable home and encouraged her to overcome her alcohol addiction.

After ending her formal schooling at 13, she’s since got her NCEA level 1 and is studying towards a certificate in youth work, she says.

“I owe a lot to him, and [others] that pushed me because they saw my potential, and they saw I had a light in me - and that’s like all rangatahi. There’s gonna be a lot of people that will look up to me, so I hope I can be that light for them.”

She’s never forgotten the kindness shown by a woman who dropped $5 in the hat Harawira Yelash had put in front of her, sitting under a lit streetlight for safety during the first week she was homeless.

“[She was] transgender and she was beautiful. She said, ‘Why are you out here?’ and she lifted her pants to show me some bruises and said, ‘I don’t ever want you to go through this’.”

Harawira Yelash still shakes her head at the kindness shown by a stranger with her own struggles.

“That’s how I learned to respect all people. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or how you want to be known … unity is so powerful, but also love. That’s what we have on the wall, ‘Love is the way’.

“All I ask of people is open your heart. Don’t turn away from people like me, or rangatahi in general. We’re all human and no one deserves to be pushed aside and forgotten.”

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.