Sixty-nine-year-old woman Lynette Haines shared her experience of being a retiree living in a campervan at the Cross-Party Homelessness Inquiry in Tauranga.
"I shouldn't be 69 years old and living in this," she said, holding up a photo of a 3.3m caravan. "New Zealand retirees have been left on the back foot and I'm one of them."
Haines said she was 60 with a full-time job when the Global Financial Crisis hit and within weeks she was jobless. She could not find another job and decided use her savings to live in a caravan park.
She decided this year that because of her age, she would try and find a permanent home to live in, but she had not had any luck. The homes she found that she could afford on the pension were not suitable for an ageing person or were in neighbourhoods where she would not feel safe.
Single mum Marion (Mazz) Adams, whose plight has been reported on in the Bay of Plenty Times, said not knowing where you were going to go the next day with five kids was hard.