Fighting for Rotorua: ‘Serious and ongoing’ breaches of human rights in emergency housing

The Human Rights Commission has released a damning review of the emergency housing system. Photo / NZME

A report revealing the emergency housing system breaches human rights has prompted a National MP to describe the Government as Rotorua’s “worst slumlord”.

A Human Rights Commission review into the country’s emergency housing, released Tuesday, found the system did not seem to adequately respond to the issue and breached the right to a decent home three times, including “serious and ongoing” breaches relating to a lack of accountability.

It has sparked a strong reaction from Rotorua’s National MP Todd McClay, who said in his view the Government was the city’s “worst slumlord”.

Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell said the report reiterated her concerns and that of the community. “It is distressing to hear just how common these breaches have been for those who are most vulnerable.”

The purpose of the report, Homelessness and human rights, was to give people impacted by emergency housing an opportunity to have their voice and experiences heard, and, secondly, to outline the human rights of an emergency housing system and what it needed to look like to meet basic human rights standards. An assessment was then made as to whether the current system met those.

Human Rights Commission housing inquiry manager Vee Blackwood said: “What we found is that it doesn’t.”

The report said that emergency housing was often not safe, secure, clean, dry, or in good repair and failed decency standards. The Government’s exclusion of emergency housing clients from the Residential Tenancies Act protections was a “serious and ongoing breach”, and people were being evicted into homelessness by accommodation providers not subject to accountability that honoured the Treaty of Waitangi.

The report included stories shared by emergency housing tenants, of cockroaches on tenants’ faces and vomit found on walls, as among the things contributing to those breaches.

Blackwood said if emergency housing was operating as originally intended - to give people with nowhere to go somewhere to stay a week or so before being supported into a long-term solution - then some of the problems such as a lack of cooking facilities would not have been such a problem.

“Obviously the basic cleanliness is always going to be a problem... people are not living in these motels for a week or so, the average stay is something like 26 weeks.”

Several of the report’s survey respondents were from Rotorua, a city Blackwood said revealed the flaws and failures of the system as an example for the rest of the country.

Rotorua serves as an example for revealing the flaws and failures of the emergency housing system, a human rights commissioner says. Photo / Andrew Warner

Government oversight and accountability were looked at as part of the review and it found the Housing and Urban Development programme, which tested contracted Rotorua motels, was a better option than paying a motelier with no oversight.

“That said, we still don’t think motel-based accommodation, by its nature, is fit for people to live in long-term for months at a time.”

Enough housing was not able to be built overnight, they said, and while people should not go back to living on the street, they should also not be expected to live in a motel that was fundamentally not fit for purpose.

However, in a statement released by the commission on Tuesday evening, it said the situation was “not beyond repair”.

Chief human rights commissioner Paul Hunt said the system should meet basic human rights standards, be accountable to those it serves and help people out of homelessness, and those features were “lacking” in parts of the country’s emergency housing system.

“We heard from young people who felt so unsafe living alongside some adults in emergency accommodation that they have resorted to or returned to living on the street,” Hunt said.

“We also heard stories of children who are now 2 or 3 years old and have only ever known living in a motel room.”

Among the accounts published in the report, some people said their so-called home was “full of cockroaches”, that children were “too tired to learn” and “have nowhere to play”, there were “seriously unsafe conditions” and it was not “mana-enhancing”.

Some said “the system is rigged”, “my friends are too scared to visit me”, “it feels like I have been forgotten”, and “I’m tired, I’ve actually given up”.

One said emergency housing in Rotorua was “beyond wrong”, while another questioned whether Father Christmas would know where to send his presents.

McClay said Rotorua had been calling on the Government to sort out the emergency housing situation for two years.

Rotorua MP Todd McClay says the Government used Rotorua as a “dumping ground for the country’s homelessness problem”. Photo / Andrew Warner

“They have made promises and made excuses. With this report, the rubber hits the road.”

McClay believed the Government used Rotorua as a “dumping ground for the country’s homelessness problem” and turned its back on local residents, as well as the people who needed homes.

He called on the Government to set a date for when the use of emergency housing motels would finish so “Rotorua can hold them to it”.

“It is horrible for the mothers and kids who are left to languish in these places that are not fit and unsafe.”

In his view: “Local people now know that the Government is the worst slumlord in Rotorua.”

Mayor Tapsell said change was needed and she was pleased “significant steps” were taken when the housing accord was signed.

Tapsell said it was time to drop the politics and focus on the change of action required.

“That is what we are now doing in Rotorua.”

Reading the report, however, Tapsell said she was concerned about the recommendation of tenancies in motels.

“I do not agree with that at this stage. Motels are not a home. They should be short-term accommodation until appropriate housing solutions are found because motels are not consented or appropriate to be residential.”

Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell signing the Rotorua Housing Accord last week. Photo / Ben Fraser

Restore Rotorua chairman Trevor Newbrook, who has held roles in the National Party’s Rotorua electorate committee, that while the housing supply issue had been around for years he doubted people were living in the squalor they were now.

“It seems to be a real downhill trend and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better,” Newbrook said.

“Why doesn’t the minister tell us how she is going to fix this, how she is going to resolve the issues the commission has raised?”

Housing Minister Megan Woods said in a statement on Tuesday that when emergency housing was introduced in 2016 it was not designed to be a long-term option.

“So it’s time to reset the system and improve how people enter emergency housing, how they are supported while there, ensure they have good quality accommodation and increase support to help them exit.”

In response to the concerns raised in this article, a representative from Woods’ office provided a statement saying ministers received initial advice on the Human Rights Commission review and would get a more detailed analysis early in the new year on its recommendations.

The Government’s own review, announced on Tuesday, included the introduction of quality standards for suppliers of emergency housing.

Its next steps were to expand support services for people in emergency housing, make changes to Housing Support Products to help people get into, and stay in, private rental accommodation, invest in supply initiatives to reduce demand on, or provide alternatives to, emergency housing for Māori, and locally-appropriate emergency housing and alternative housing options would be investigated for Wellington and Hamilton.

Findings and recommendations

The Commission’s report finds three key breaches of the right to a decent home grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi:

• The emergency housing system is failing to deliver the Government’s immediate human rights obligations to provide emergency housing that meets basic standards of decency and other key human rights features, and not to evict anyone into homelessness. This failure results in a breach of the right to a decent home grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
• The Government’s decision in 2020 to exclude emergency accommodation and transitional housing from the Residential Tenancies Act is a serious and ongoing breach of its human rights obligation to provide accountability for the right to a decent home.
• The Government has failed to put in place accountability arrangements for the right to a decent home, grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in relation to the emergency housing system. The lack of accountability over the emergency housing system and in particular, the emergency housing grant initiative, is a serious breach of the Government’s obligation in relation to the right to a decent home.

Commission review recommendations:

• Address the inconsistencies between the two different initiatives (emergency accommodation and transitional housing) and work to create a single, holistic system of emergency housing. This system must: meet urgent housing needs at a range of levels and support requirements, without stigmatisation, and with a focus on relational rather than transactional services; be designed, developed, and delivered in full partnership with Tangata Whenua, and respond to Māori needs and te ao Māori responses to homelessness; actively support and build on community, hapū and iwi initiatives; and be developed in active participation with those who have lived experience of homelessness and the emergency housing system.
• As soon as possible, phase out the use of uncontracted commercial accommodation suppliers receiving the Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant to deliver emergency accommodation.
• Commit to adequately protecting the rights of those in the emergency housing system, either by amending the Residential Tenancies Act or by creating an alternative mechanism that is significantly stronger than the current draft Code of Practice for Transitional Housing.
• Establish an effective, accessible, and constructive accountability mechanism for the housing system, including the emergency housing system.
• Establish an independent advisory and advocacy group grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.