In search of Auckland's lost souls

One of Auckland's rough sleepers on Queen St. Auckland City Mission volunteers headed out Sunday to carry out a census of the city's homeless. Photo / Greg Bowker

The steep concrete bank stretches up until it almost touches the motorway above, then flattens out to leave a roomy platform.

Someone lives way up in that lonely pocket of space, hidden in the underbelly of the Southern Motorway next to the solid brick walls of Mt Eden Prison.

It's cold and shadowy but we need to see if anyone is home so we can count them as part of the annual census of the homeless living within 3km of the Sky Tower.

But first we have to get up there.

A high metal fence cuts off access - it wasn't there last year and it doesn't look like a nice fence, says Wilf Holt, the Auckland City Mission's Homeless Team Leader and co-ordinator of the hardy volunteers from a number of agencies who have come out this drizzly Sunday night with their raincoats and torches to help with the census.

Holt acknowledges this head count is an inexact science.

The volunteers can't pinpoint everyone but it's still a valuable tool to track population changes each year and help ensure rough sleepers are included in the discussion and planning for the city.

We manage to haul ourselves over the fence then pick our way across railway tracks and head up the slope to the top.

Suddenly, it's very apparent we're in someone else's domain.

Up here it's quiet, but for the muffled roar of the traffic, and it feels intrusive.

This is someone's private space, a hideaway they have made from bits and pieces picked up and scavenged.

To the left, there are some salvaged shelves and to the right an arrangement of curtains concealing a little bedroom and doubling as a clothesline, with towels and tea towels hanging across the front.

"Anyone home?" Holt calls out. "It's Wilf from the Mission, we're just counting people tonight."

Silence. But the bedroom curtain lifts a fraction. We're being watched, but no one answers.

"That's okay," Holt says cheerily. "We'll leave you alone mate."

As we make our way back down the slope, Holt says this is a sad case.

No one really knows much about the man who lives here, but he is trespassing and has to move.

There is rubber under the motorway's foundations and the man has been having a fire on these cold winter nights. The motorway people are worried the fire will affect the rubber and have called in the City Mission to intervene.

But though Holt has tried to arrange a meeting with the man, he doesn't appear to want any contact.

He is Maori, a "big boy" in his 40s and he doesn't use any social services, he's just not interested.

We carry on searching. At a nearby reserve we tramp across the wet grass to the band rotunda and make plenty of noise.

This is in line with the rules on census night - let people know you're coming and don't shine a torch in their eyes.

Respect their space and remember that, for a lot of people, this is their home.

If they're drunk or displaying unusual or aggressive behaviour, just walk away or call the police if you need to.

No need to call the police here. There's a solitary shape in a sleeping bag in the band rotunda, a lump of humanity frozen still against the intruders, the silence again speaking volumes.

This man doesn't move a muscle, he just wants us to go away.

"Have a good night," says Holt and we move on again.

Actually, we're not getting a high head count tonight.

There aren't that many people around, and that's a good thing.

A lot of the people who have been found year after year are slowly "coming in", which is great, says Holt.

He rattles off names, Ida and her man Jimmy, Wiremu, Brownie, they're now in boarding houses or Housing New Zealand accommodation.

Agencies like the Anglican City Mission and Lifewise, the Methodist agency, have put in the hard yards and engaged with the long-term homeless to achieve good results.

Mind you, Holt says, some of those tenancies are on a knife edge and people could be back on the street again at any moment.

Sunday night's census counts 53 homeless people, a definite drop on the 76 from last year; however, both those figures can be at least doubled to give an idea of the real number sleeping rough.

Sixty to 70 per cent of them live in the central blocks of the city, nearer to services and food, and earlier in the night we had scoured these areas.

The 25 or so volunteers had broken into small groups, each with a zone or part of a zone to search.

People fanned out from the Sky Tower, shining torches into dark places, checking alleyways and carparks, side roads and doorways.

City streets so familiar by day are by night a sprawl of nooks and crannies where people lay their heads.

But while some like to drop below the public radar, others are in full view.

In Queen St, outside the boarded-up St James Theatre, we saw a woman in a doorway. A security guard in our group often encounters her.

She lay there zonked out though it was only 8.30pm and noisy with music and buses and passers-by who mostly didn't seem to see her.

This woman uses solvents, the guard said, and can be aggressive if you try to move her on.

She's usually with a group of glue sniffers, two more women and three men, all aged 30 to 40, and sometimes a young woman in her 20s.

We also shone our torches down a dark, gloomy driveway in an abandoned building which backs on to restaurants where people chatter and laugh.

Down in the parking area it was gloomy and eerie with puddles and graffiti covering every wall.

There was a wafting stink of urine, too, but even this place was a big bedroom; a piece of cardboard laid flat against the wall over there and behind a pillar someone had made the most of what little he had.

His mattress was cardboard but covered with a neatly laid bit of carpet, and next to it in the almost pitch-black was a box of nicely folded, fresh-looking blankets.

People end up on the street for any number of reasons; relationship break-ups, mental illness, drug and alcohol problems.

They don't fit in society and they fall through the gaps, but Holt says only a rare few deep down choose to live on the streets.

The census is a reminder that they are here and never very far away: "These are cold, hard facts, that these people were found on this night sleeping rough and we can't ignore it."

No one was home in the dank, empty parking lot but sadly for some, home it is.

REDUCING OUR CITY'S HOMELESS

* 53 people found sleeping rough on Sunday night
* 76 people counted last year

The census counted 53 people sleeping rough on Sunday night, 23 down on the 76 counted last year.

Not included were two known rough sleepers held in the Auckland Central police cells, nor six at the in-patient psychiatric unit at Auckland Hospital, and figures for emergency accommodation and boarding houses (where homeless people sometimes "sofa surf") were still being collated.

The census counts only those found on the night and though the numbers have dropped, the real number of homeless living within 3km of the Sky Tower is estimated to be much higher.

Analysis of those counted on the night and comparisons with the homeless people outreach workers know about means the true figure is likely to be around 120, compared to around 150 last year.

And though the drop means more people are in accommodation, tenancies are often precarious; this is one of the reasons the Auckland City Mission is planning an ambitious rebuild on its Hobson St site, with apartments and wraparound social services for the city's homeless people.

Resource consent was recently granted for the project but a huge fundraising effort is now needed.

The idea is for the accommodation to have onsite everything a person may need, such as a doctor, the foodbank and a supportive community.

That way if someone gets into trouble or stops taking their medication they can be given help.

In boarding houses they would probably not pay the rent and get kicked out, ending up back on the street.

HOW CAN YOU HELP
Help out or donate to the City Mission: www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz

Or, for the Methodist agency Lifewise, also very involved with the homeless, go to: www.lifewise.org.nz