"Think of the people who find themselves in prison because they can't go home because they have no family or non-molestation orders have been made."
Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said this month's Budget would fund 3000 places a year in emergency housing nationally at a cost of $41 million over four years, or about $10 million a year.
On the basis that people stay for an average of just under three months, the money will fund 360 actual beds in Auckland compared with about 120 at present.
Canterbury will get 100 beds, with 60 each for Waikato, Bay of Plenty, East Coast/Hawkes Bay and Wellington and 100 elsewhere.
Half will be for families and half for single people.
A Cabinet paper says the target group will be about 5000 people living on the street or in "improvised dwellings" including 76 social housing applicants who were living in cars last September, 18 who were living in tents and 146 who were sleeping rough.
Dame Diane Robertson, who chairs the James Liston Trust which operates a 40-bed hostel in Freemans Bay, said she hoped the new funding would rescue the hostel which is operating on capital raised from the sale of the former night shelter.
"It needs a new roof at $450,000, so it would have to go into capital," she said.
But she doubted that the Civic Administration Building would be suitable for a night shelter because of asbestos problems.
