While not as bad as places like Wellington, Kāpiti has it share of the estimated 41,600 homeless people in Aotearoa New Zealand.
"For those who have little idea of what it feels like to live rough, we have the Sudsy Challenge Project where people can volunteer to stay in the same set of clothes for three days, talk about it to friends and family and raise funds to support the homeless," said Cathy, who was inspired to commit her time after she witnessed the stories told during the funerals of her parents. Stories of their selfless work amongst the deprived and alienated. Talking of which, the Human Rights Commission had recently released a report that identified the failure of consecutive governments resulting in the current housing crisis and a human rights calamity.
The OrangeSky Project is one of about 25 groups representing a range of community health and wellbeing services. Kāpiti is grateful to the numerous volunteers who give their precious time to help people in our communities.
Earlier that morning, council kaumatua Koro Don and I were at the opening of the Rezonate Wellness Centre at Lindale Village. Debby and Ron Emeny had brought together a range of alternative healing practitioners in one place. One of the observations I made on the interesting collection of people was the need for people to access services that manage and reduce stress in a situation where there are huge stress lines rupturing through the fabric of our society. I mentioned council staff themselves being under huge pressures.
Part of the reason I mentioned this related to an observation made by a speaker at last Friday's Zone 4 Local Government NZ meeting in Lower Hutt.
This is the forum for all the councils of the Wellington region. He framed these pressures as part of the significant reforms initiated by the Government. The reforms to: the polytechnics shaping our workforce, the health system, the Three Waters, the RMA, the future of local government, and the empowerment of the Treaty towards the exercise of co-governance in some areas.
On top of these I will put the huge existential threats posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the even-bigger threat of climate change. The IPCC report due this week will witness more doomsday information given the iceberg-slow global action.
These are massive tectonic fissures. The speaker noted the Government-initiated reforms alone can be akin to medical surgeons conducting multiple and different surgeries on a patient all at the same time. At some point we will have to pause and ask the question if the patient will survive this spaghetti junction of reforms. This analogy struck a chord with the audience.
Mayors and chief executives have known this for some time, noting that our staff are under huge workloads where they have to manage a business-as-usual reality while taking steps to respond to the coming changes, which in terms of planning projections are undermining the very business-as-usual reality we have to maintain.
And they have to also provide the elected members the professional advice we need to make informed decisions. Other mayors have told me they have some elected members who have little or no idea of the stress staff are under and what the negative impact of their petty politicking can do to their mental health.
