Auckland homelessness is rising, with advocates calling for a Duty to Assist law. Photo / Getty Images
By Bella Craig of RNZ
An advocate for Auckland’s homeless says he is seeing an increase in people sleeping rough on the city’s streets.
Throughout winter and into spring, Kildare Peterson has been dropping supplies to people sleeping rough in the CBD and within his own community in Onehunga.
He’s seeing growing levels of desperation. One man told Checkpoint he would deliberately get arrested in order to have a roof over his head for a night or two, away from the temptations of drugs and alcohol.
It’s prompted calls to implement Duty to Assist legislation, to ensure all people have access to safe and stable housing.
Earlier this month, the Government announced it was expanding support for rough sleepers with immediate steps to facilitate stable housing.
As sunlight began to warm the concrete along Auckland Central’s footpaths, people who had stayed the night on the streets began to roll up sleeping bags, pack down tents and roll trolleys away out of sight.
Ben* spent the night under a clump of trees and was wandering the streets to find his next spot. He’s been homeless throughout his life.
“I think of it like an extension of camping out. But it’s really, it’s a little harder these days to find proper accommodation.”
He’s now clean from drugs and alcohol, but getting sober was an agonising struggle.
“I used to purposely get myself arrested so I could go to prison, just to have a break off the drugs and alcohol and I was homeless.
“But that’s not really good for me, getting myself arrested purposely just to go to jail to have a break.”
Ben sleeps around Auckland’s city centre to be closer to support services.
“If you don’t live in the city, if you’re homeless out in the suburbs, it’s harder to get to places like the City Mission.”
Peterson and Fred Passi head out early in the morning, when the city’s homeless are usually still hunkered down in their makeshift shelters, to drop off packages of food, toiletries and clothes.
Peterson said they use money from their own pockets to buy supplies and collect donated sleeping bags, tents and other goods.
“Brand-new beanies that have been donated, winter gloves, second-hand winter jackets, some of them brand-new from the people who own retail stores.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s just good-quality for them to keep warm.”
Peterson knows what it’s like to be homeless.
He has spent time living on the street and now wants to support those who find themselves in situations like he did.
He said often, people who are homeless can go months without speaking to anyone.
“What they’ve been telling me out there is that they can’t afford to rent, a one-bedroom apartment even, or they’ve been kicked out of Kāinga Ora because they’ve broken the rules.
“They’d rather buy food to feed their kids instead of paying the rent, and they can’t afford the power.”
Peterson said he’s seeing a wider range of people who are homeless, from young people to people from overseas, including international students.
“What I’ve noticed, there’s a few international people out there, a lot of them did start coming here to study and for some reason they’ve lost their motivation.
“A lot of them say they can’t keep up with the rent in their apartments and study puts a lot of pressure on them.”
Aaron Hendry, co-founder of KickBack, an organisation that responds to youth homelessness, said he’d like Duty to Assist legislation to be put in place.
This would mandate the Government to provide all necessary resources to support the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless.
“Right now, you walk in the door and there’s a whole lot of criteria and questions. Often people are not assessed correctly and do not get the support that they need.
“People fall through the cracks and they end up sleeping on our streets.”
Duty to Assist legislation would ensure people were provided with access to emergency and transitional support, as well as long-term and stable housing.
“What it would start to do is build some data to show us where the gaps are, where investment needs to go and where we should be building.”
However, he said this type of legislation wouldn’t fix issues overnight.
“Homelessness is fundamentally a housing issue and until we have enough housing to serve us, we’re going to have homelessness.”
According to Auckland Council, 650 people were identified as being homeless in January this year, up from 426 in September 2024. In May, that number was over 800.
The numbers could be higher as they don’t capture people who are hidden, couch surfing or living in overcrowded housing.
*Name has been changed to protect the person’s identity.
– RNZ