Northern Advocate
  • Northern Advocate home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings

Locations

  • Far North
  • Kaitaia
  • Kaikohe
  • Bay of Islands
  • Whangārei
  • Kaipara
  • Mangawhai
  • Dargaville

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whangārei
  • Dargaville

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Northern Advocate

Homelessness on the rise in Northland

Sarah Curtis
By Sarah Curtis
Multimedia Journalist·Northern Advocate·
7 Jun, 2024 05:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save
    Share this article
Resourceful Whangārei pensioner Martin Colcord, who has been waiting for social housing, has been happy enough living out of his car over the past six years. However, he's now facing aggressive surgery for skin cancer and will need a proper home to recuperate afterward. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Resourceful Whangārei pensioner Martin Colcord, who has been waiting for social housing, has been happy enough living out of his car over the past six years. However, he's now facing aggressive surgery for skin cancer and will need a proper home to recuperate afterward. Photo / Michael Cunningham


“Keep your chin up and your phone handy.”

That’s what homeless Whangārei pensioner Martin Colcord was told when he last checked on his place in the queue for social housing.

Colcord, 65, has been living in his car off and on for the past six years. The rough lifestyle, in which he parks up for the night at various spots around the city’s coastline, hasn’t been too much of an issue for him. In fact, he says it’s been good.

He doesn’t have to pay rent and the view is always one he likes.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

A resourceful man, Colcord is skilled in many trades from which he’s earned enough over the years to sustain himself, six successive partners, and seven children, albeit not enough to accrue any savings.

He’s still physically strong and determined enough to wrestle a dinghy on and off his car roof, using it to fish and dive for most of his meals.

Colcord doesn’t fear for his safety and has a resilient personality. He appreciates the simple things in life such as just being able to fit everything he needs for his day-to-day living in his trusty Toyota station wagon and having enough room left over to lie down flat at night.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

While he’s proud of his roadworthiness, he also knows it probably works against him in the ongoing struggle among an ever-increasing throng of low to moderate income earners trying to secure low-cost public rental housing.

“‘He’ll get by, he’ll get another boat or something’, I think that’s pretty much how they look at it,” Colcord said.

However, now also waiting on aggressive surgery for skin cancer, he believed he should be a higher priority case. Social services had told him his chances of getting public housing might be better if he could get a letter from his doctor explaining he needed somewhere suitable to recuperate after the operation - that his car wouldn’t be a suitable place.

Even so, his wait might still be a long one.

Latest Ministry of Social Development (MSD) social housing data showed the queue for Northland had stretched in the last quarter to 1248. Of those, 642 people were in Whangārei.

In 2019 there were only 408 Northlanders on the list. With the exception of 2022, that number has continued to rise markedly every year since.

At 65 and in need of somewhere to recuperate after upcoming surgery for skin cancer, pensioner and longstanding car dweller Martin Colcord says his resilience and resourcefulness have probably worked against him in the struggle to secure a Housing New Zealand home. Photo / Michael Cunningham
At 65 and in need of somewhere to recuperate after upcoming surgery for skin cancer, pensioner and longstanding car dweller Martin Colcord says his resilience and resourcefulness have probably worked against him in the struggle to secure a Housing New Zealand home. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Colcord, who’s on good terms with all his adult kids, knows he could probably stay with one of them if push came to shove. However, he wouldn’t want to impose, and they knew he wouldn’t want to live under anyone else’s thumb, he said.

He once owned a boat and happily lived on it, but it broke its mooring during Cyclone Gabrielle and got wrecked against rocks. Although he managed to make it seaworthy again, he was only back on board a short while before it was rammed by another vessel and sank irretrievably in the deep water of Whangārei Harbour. Colcord had no insurance - he couldn’t afford it.

Afterward, he moved into a boarding house situation, but it was challenging. Among the other residents were gang members, parolees, people who were mentally ill and ultimately it was all just too unruly for him, Colcord said.

He wouldn’t contemplate moving to another centre. Northland was “home”.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“Seeing the Hen and Chicken Islands from the top of the Brynderwyns gives me a warm flutter in my heart - I’m home!”

So what options other than waiting in Kāinga Ora New Zealand’s ever-increasing queue for accommodation are there for Whangārei’s homeless? Whose responsibility is it, if anyone’s, to look after their interests?

Whangārei District Council’s manager health and bylaws Reiner Mussle stressed it wasn’t a core council responsibility.

“Persons experiencing homelessness are encouraged to engage with social service providers,” Mussle said.

Council teams were often the first to be called when concerns were raised about people setting up communities or camping or sleeping round on public property.

The calls were usually about “hygiene, alcohol consumption or noise and general safety”.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

However, ratepayers were mistaken if they thought council could monitor and infringe the homeless in the way it could freedom campers, Mussle said.

The Freedom Camping Act 2011 clearly defined what freedom camping was and it wasn’t homeless people sleeping rough. Homeless people weren’t subject to any “nightly limits” on where they could stay the way freedom campers were.

Notwithstanding council’s lack of obligation to the city’s homeless, it was “very aware” of their “complex needs and issues”, and “focused on bringing the skills, resources, knowledge and responsibilities of multiple agencies involved in this space together to look for answers”.

Those agencies included MSD, Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Arataki Ministries, 155 Whare Āwhina and the New Zealand Police.

* Trade Me data showed the median weekly rent for privately rented homes in Northland had fallen by 1.7 per cent between April and March, this year, settling at $590.

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, much of which she spent court reporting. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.







Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.




Save
    Share this article

Latest from Northern Advocate

Northern Advocate

‘Where’s my girl?’ Mum’s horror realising 11yo wasn't with Kaikohe crash survivors

Northern Advocate

Ministers visiting Kaitāia for rural health roadshow and community talks

Northern Advocate

'It's the cost of surviving': MP slams Govt housing policy changes


Sponsored

Revealed: The night driving ‘red flag’

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Northern Advocate

‘Where’s my girl?’ Mum’s horror realising 11yo wasn't with Kaikohe crash survivors
Northern Advocate

‘Where’s my girl?’ Mum’s horror realising 11yo wasn't with Kaikohe crash survivors

Staci Walkley, 11, was found dead under her parents’ vehicle after the collision.

07 Aug 07:02 AM
Ministers visiting Kaitāia for rural health roadshow and community talks
Northern Advocate

Ministers visiting Kaitāia for rural health roadshow and community talks

06 Aug 11:00 PM
'It's the cost of surviving': MP slams Govt housing policy changes
Northern Advocate

'It's the cost of surviving': MP slams Govt housing policy changes

06 Aug 06:11 PM


Revealed: The night driving ‘red flag’
Sponsored

Revealed: The night driving ‘red flag’

04 Aug 11:37 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • The Northern Advocate e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Northern Advocate
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The Northern Advocate
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP