Rotorua service providers learn about Housing First approach to homelessness

More than 70 representatives from Rotorua's service providers gathered to learn about Housing First. Photo / Stephen Parker

The founder of the Housing First model spent an afternoon with Rotorua service providers taking them through an approach that focuses on housing homeless people with complex needs.

More than 70 representatives from organisations such as Link People, Lifewise, Visions of a Helping Hand, Love Soup, the Ministry for Social Development, Te Taumata o Ngati Whakaue, Te Tatau o Te Arawa and Te Utuhina Manaakitanga attended the talk at Rotorua Lakes Council today.

Housing First is an intensive programme to house and support people who have been homeless for a long time and have multiple high and complex needs.

New government funding from Budget 2018 will see the programme expand across four regions, including Rotorua.

Dr Sam Tsemberis, the founder of Housing First, said he wasn't expecting there to be such a turnout.

"The thing about smaller cities is the homelessness problem is manageable.

"I don't think it's a small issue by any means, but we have plans in place to offer support for 75 people and that matches the needs of Rotorua."

Tsemberis, a Canadian clinical and community psychology practitioner, has researched homeless communities across the world.

"The countries with the largest income disparities, between the highest and lowest earning people, have more homeless people per capita.

"On any given night in Los Angeles there are 24,000 people sleeping in the streets, whereas there are about 400 people in Dublin."

He said only about 5 to 10 per cent of the homeless population were "chronically homeless" and those are the ones targeted by the Housing First programme.

"Even if we could just pay the rent for this group it wouldn't be enough to keep them in housing.

"It's the continued support of Housing First that creates the stability."

Dr Sam Tsemberis talks at a seminar about Housing First. Photo / Stephen Parker

He said if he asked around the room, Rotorua would have about 50 homeless people who were easily identifiable across the agencies.

"They're our well-known homeless, the folks who are in and out of emergency accommodation a lot."

The current model for dealing with homelessness is a staircase approach in which a person is transitioned from the street, into a shelter, into transitional housing and then a home, Tsemberis said.

"This is where we see 10 per cent of the population using 50 per cent of the system's resources and end up in an institutional cycle where people are between the streets, prison, shelters or a hospital.

"Housing First takes the approach of giving them immediate access to a place of their own, then support and treatment follows."

He said changing mental health issues, addiction issues or the other drivers for people's homelessness would take time.

"What people tell us they want most when we give them the opportunity to tell us what they want is that it's obvious, their first need is they want a place to live.

"The programme is not really about housing, it's about engaging people in a healthy relationship and the housing is an engagement tool to get them somewhere to work on the real problems."

Tsemberis said a key factor in Housing First was getting community landlords to come on board.

"The three components are clients, case managers and landlords.

"It's about agencies assuming some of that risk, by guaranteeing rent and providing a support service, because having landlords on board is hugely important."

The service providers had the opportunity to ask Tsemberis questions and one of the key issues was how different agencies could overcome the barriers and work together.

"It's about having a Housing First team, solely accountable for delivering the Housing First services," Tsemberis said.

"It's absolutely a critical issue with this."

Lifewise Rotorua service manager Haehaetu Barrett spoke to the group saying she saw Housing First as an opportunity for all the services to come together.

"It's our people, working with our people.

"We lost those values when the contracts came in and we were all chasing the purse."

She said she wanted to see those walls broken down so they could "deliver a service with heart".

What is Housing First?
• Housing First is a proven, evidence-based model that ends homelessness.
• The approach is to provide housing quickly then offer tailored support for as long as it's needed to help people stay housed and address the issues that led to their homelessness.
Who is Housing First for?
• Housing First is an intensive programme for people who have been homeless a long time or frequently in and out of homelessness over a long time, and have multiple, high and complex needs – such as addiction, mental and physical health issues, experience of violence or abuse.
How does it work?
• Housing First providers reach out to homeless people with high, multiple and complex needs and also assess referrals/self-referrals.
• For those in Housing First, the only condition is that people engage with the
programme.
• Support is ongoing and proactively offered, linked across agencies to meet
each person's physical, mental health and other needs.
• Positive steps towards wellbeing include connecting to communities, iwi and whānau, learning and employment, and choices to reduce harmful behaviours.
- Ministry of Social Development