Housing queue grows as system 'hits trough'

Sam Tsemberis

The queue for social housing has lengthened again in Auckland - but not in Hamilton, where agencies are working together to end homelessness by next year.

The priority A waiting list, defined as people "at risk and including households with a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately", has jumped in Auckland from 941 households in June to 1200 at the end of September.

But the waiting list held steady at 106 households in Hamilton, where it is now almost a third lower than in September last year when a group of agencies led by Mayor Julie Hardaker formed the "People's Project" to end homelessness in two years.

Project head Julie Nelson said the approach was "housing first" - finding people a permanent house and then wrapping services around them to help overcome addictions, cope with traumas, find jobs and deal with things that had gone wrong.

An American expert on the approach, who is credited with ending homelessness in Utah, Dr Sam Tsemberis, briefed Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett on the concept yesterday. He will speak about it at a Community Housing Aotearoa conference today.

In Auckland, David Zussman of the Monte Cecilia Housing Trust said the shortage of social housing eased early this year, when the city's priority A waiting list dropped even faster than in Hamilton, from a peak of 1707 in June last year to just 1066 households in March and 941 in June.

The peak last year came immediately after the April 2014 transfer of the waiting list from Housing NZ to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). The ministry initially adopted a mechanistic way of allocating people to houses, but gradually became more flexible. Families that had sat in Monte Cecilia's emergency housing for up to a year finally started getting houses.

But Mr Zussman said it had become more difficult again to get families out of emergency housing into state houses.

"We have hit another trough in terms of the flow-through," he said. "I thought we were developing good relationships with MSD and they were making sure three months [in emergency housing] generally was a target. It feels like that has been lost."

In Hamilton, Ms Nelson said numbers "sleeping rough" had been cut drastically from about 80 when the People's Project started.

"We have housed 121 people, that has been in-dividuals and families."

She said "by far the majority" of those housed had found private sector rentals with wraparound support from the agencies which include MSD, Housing NZ, the Waikato District Health Board, mental health support agency Wise Group, Te Puni Kokiri, Hamilton City Council, Hamilton Central Business Association and the Police and Corrections Departments.

"When someone is coming out of hospital or prison, we should be asking the question, 'Where are you going to live?'" she said.

"We need to make sure the system is completely joined up, as opposed to, 'The person has served their time and that's no longer our responsibility.'"