Zizi Sparks: Whose job is it to fund a night shelter for needy women?

A Tauranga night shelter needs more than $60,000 to open on Fridays and Saturdays. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

A warm, safe place to lay your head at night without risk. It isn't much to ask for as far as I'm concerned.

And yet every day there are thousands of people throughout the country without that.

This week we reported a new women-only night shelter in Tauranga needs $64,800 for six months to cover additional security on Friday and Saturday nights. Already, the shelter's total expenses are $78,000 per month.

Without the extra funding, it can't open on Friday and Saturday nights - evenings considered "most dangerous". And if it can't open, that means women can't access the help they need.

It shouldn't be the responsibility of charities, scraping the bottom of the coffers to ensure people are housed and safe.

In Rotorua, a night shelter was being operated before the Covid-19 lockdown. When it hit the Government housed all the homeless in motels instead.

And when the lockdown lifted those people stayed in those motels. Hopefully many found longer-term or transitional housing.

But housing people in motels brought another set of issues.

Residents raised issues about emergency housing clients in the area and previously we have reported increases in crime in emergency housing-heavy areas, drug use and dealing and disorder. The city has been labelled a "dumping ground".

The Government has made a good start on addressing the issue.

Its recently-announced plan would see emergency accommodation motels directly contracted by the Government, wraparound social support services and grouping of cohorts like families and tamariki in particular motels.

But even then there is a concern. Residents raised issues about emergency housing clients in the area and care does need to be taken when it comes to rolling out the Government's emergency housing plan to ensure a small bad bunch doesn't have a bad effect locally.

However, people are still entitled to a warm, safe place to sleep.

Some of the people we have spoken to had been kicked out by landlords wanting to move home, people in emergency housing after losing jobs due to Covid. These are real people and none of the issues we've seen with emergency housing refute the fact they are entitled to a place to call home.

The Covid-19 lockdown inadvertently meant homeless got off the streets and out of night shelters into emergency housing and then on to long-term housing.

While emergency housing is a stepping stone, not a long-term solution, the Government should step up and fund the night shelter or get people into longer-term homes.