Tauranga is facing the "perfect storm" of social agencies which cannot afford to provide emergency housing during a housing crisis, Labour MP Sue Moroney says.
Ms Moroney, Labour's Women's Affairs spokeswoman, visited social agencies in Tauranga yesterday because she was concerned about the city's housing problems and the effects it had on women and children. "Women and children are the ones who tend to bear the brunt of housing problems. One of the things I hear from women's refuges around the country is the housing crises are driving women to come to organisations like this seeking help for housing."
Visiting the Tauranga Women's Refuge, Ms Moroney said she was concerned women in desperate situations may have to end up back in the situation they were trying to escape from because of the housing shortage.
"The city is facing the perfect storm of social agencies whose funding has been frozen or cut and can't provide emergency housing and there's this boom in the need for housing. We need to find out about the particular vulnerabilities women and children are subjected to because of the housing crisis.
"It's being driven from the housing crisis coming from Auckland and it's drifting south to Hamilton and Tauranga big time and our cities don't have the infrastructure to deal with it."
Refuge manager Angela Warren-Clark said many families that used the safe house had "incredible difficulty" leaving because of a shortage of available properties, causing a bottle-neck. "There is a good stock of Housing New Zealand homes here, but there is insufficient stock for the need. If women transfer to Tauranga from another refuge, they often think they can move into another Housing New Zealand house if they already have a tenancy elsewhere and we have to say to them there is no availability.
"We've only been able to house three women in the last three years in Housing New Zealand homes. That's not because they don't want to, that's because the homes are unavailable."
Mrs Warren-Clark said she often fielded calls from women who were living in their cars with their children, but as a refuge, she could not help them. " ... they don't meet our criteria, they aren't fleeing from violence. There's a fear that because they are homeless, they may have their children removed by the authorities ..."
Mrs Warren-Clark said homeless men were visible in the community and because of this, people wanted to help them. But homeless women living in cars were flying under the radar.
Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller said he acknowledged emergency housing in Tauranga was a problem. Mr Muller previously spoke out about the issue and suggested the upcoming transfer of HNZ homes into the hands of community providers would help alleviate the problem. However, the Government was reviewing the emergency housing situation, so he was unable to comment further, Mr Muller said.
In July, Te Tuinga Whanau Support Services Trust director Tommy Wilson said Tauranga had a night shelter for the homeless, refuges for its battered wives but nowhere for the mothers who needed emergency housing. "Is there an emergency housing crisis? Absolutely there is."
Many of the trust's clients resulted from a family unit breaking down. Often, the clients were not from Tauranga but were in the city because of their situations, Mr Wilson said.
That same month, Tauranga mother Aria Koha called for action on the "crisis" in Tauranga after relying on friends to house herself and two boys.