Hostel changes stripes to take in homeless 06 Jul 2021 15:15 PM
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Wellington City Mission today opened an emergency housing complex that can accommodate up to 100 individuals and whānau.
The Government is contributing about $15 million over 3 years to support Te Pā Pori, which is in the former Wild Zebra Backpackers lodge on Tory Street.
Homeless Minister Marama Davidson says the Government needs to balance the long-term goal of increasing public housing supply with the imperative to provide immediate support to whanau and individuals who find themselves without a home.
She says being homeless can strip people of dignity and hope, and having a safe and secure place to stay while the right support services are available is crucial to ensuring people can transition to long term suitable housing.
Hostel changes stripes to take in homeless 06 Jul 2021 15:15 PM
More Related Stories
Related Podcast
Wellington City Mission today opened an emergency housing complex that can accommodate up to 100 individuals and whānau.
The Government is contributing about $15 million over 3 years to support Te Pā Pori, which is in the former Wild Zebra Backpackers lodge on Tory Street.
Homeless Minister Marama Davidson says the Government needs to balance the long-term goal of increasing public housing supply with the imperative to provide immediate support to whanau and individuals who find themselves without a home.
She says being homeless can strip people of dignity and hope, and having a safe and secure place to stay while the right support services are available is crucial to ensuring people can transition to long term suitable housing.
The way forward? Transitional housing, Cassels said. People in emergency housing were signed on to short-term contracts by the Ministry of Social Development, known as Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants, one week at a time. Transitional housing, however, was contracted for an average of around 12 weeks, and typically included some wraparound supports, depending on the provider. “I don’t think the emergency housing system was ever contemplated, or designed, to deal with such a dramatic increase in the number of people who needed to use it. “I believe that inevitably there’ll be a series of imperfect steps before we find a solution. That solution is obviously, slowly but surely, moving from emergency housing to transitional housing.”
It’s not an uncommon story. The machinery of emergency housing held 622 Wellington households in its gears at last count. The people in those households are signed on to short-term contracts with emergency housing providers, funded through grants provided by the Ministry of Social Development, one week at a time. But those contracts aren’t protected by the Residential Tenancies Act, giving people in emergency housing a shaky claim on the title “tenant”, and no certainty of shelter beyond seven days. On the other hand, the contracts sometimes roll over indefinitely – in some cases for years – because the actual social housing wait list now exceeds 22,000 people.