Government ministers are considering measures to move homeless people from Auckland's city centre. Photo / Getty Images
By Craig McCulloch of RNZ
Government ministers have confirmed they are considering measures to move homeless people out of Auckland’s city centre – but the exact details remain unclear.
Opposition parties and housing advocates have raised alarm over the prospect of an effective ban on homeless people in city centres, warning that such an approach only displaces the problem and causes more harm.
Asked about the possibility on Tuesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Parliament there had been “no Cabinet decisions or discussion” on the topic.
But today, he told reporters the Government was in discussion with “lots of different stakeholders” in Auckland to improve the state of the city centre.
“Move-on orders would be one of the things that you’d want to be considering. But obviously ... you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the right support structures in place to support people as well.”
Asked for more details, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said he had been tasked with ensuring police had the tools they needed to tackle public disorder.
“It’s blindingly obvious to everybody that the CBD, particularly of Auckland, but [also] a lot of places, have been characterised by disorder and real concern around public safety,” Goldsmith said. “We’re open to some new suggestions in that area.”
Asked specifically whether he would consider a ban on rough sleeping, Goldsmith said: “We’re working our way through those issues ... when we’ve got something to announce, we’ll announce that.”
National MP Ryan Hamilton has put forward a member’s bill to give police the power to direct a person or group to leave an area if their presence was causing distress, disorder or a nuisance. The bill has not yet been pulled from the ballot.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell said he supported giving police more tools to move homeless people on from public areas.
“You’re not just going to pick up someone that’s in a vulnerable position and drop them off in another vulnerable position. You’re actually going to take them to a place of safety. That’s the whole idea of it.”
Housing Minister Chris Bishop said no legislation was currently being drafted but “a range of things [were] under consideration”.
“We want to make sure the Auckland CBD is a place that people are proud of, and I think most reasonable people would say it’s not at the moment.”
Bishop said his focus as minister had been on finding more homes for rough sleepers, pointing to a “significant investment” into 300 more Housing First places.
He acknowledged, however, that only a couple of spots had become available since that announcement in September.
“The providers are working at pace to get those houses available. It’s not just something that you can do immediately ... the intention is for all of those places to be contracted and available with people in them by Christmas.”
Not all ministers seemed to be across the consideration. Deputy Prime Minister and Act leader David Seymour seemed bemused by questions and said he had not been a part of any conversations on banning rough sleepers from city centres.
“Goldie talks about a lot of things. Hasn’t talked to me about that,” Seymour said.
“I just ask the question: what happens next? Things have to be practical. They have to work. So if you ban homelessness, where do people actually go? And that’s why I said, you’re better to actually build homes, engage community housing providers, get people a place to go. That’s what actually works.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said making it illegal to be homeless in the city centre would not deal with the core problem.
“They might not be in the CBD anymore. They might be outside someone’s house in the suburbs. That doesn’t make them any less homeless.”
Hipkins said the Government’s focus should be on providing shelter for homeless people and then dealing with underlying issues they face such as mental health, addictions and unemployment.
“Simply trying to make homelessness less visible isn’t going to make that problem any better.”
Green co-leader and Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick told reporters she would be meeting with social service providers on Friday to discuss their concerns.
“It’s very clear that this Government has exacerbated the homelessness crisis ... by making it more difficult to access emergency housing and cutting access to wraparound support.”
Swarbrick said “move-on” legislation in other jurisdictions had served as a “pipeline into the criminal justice or prison system”.
Housing First Auckland programme manager Rami Alrudaini told RNZ that an enforcement or punitive “move-on” approach to rough sleeping would only “displace the problem and cause more harm”.
“Delivering proven programmes that provide housing, health and wrap-around support is the most effective way to address homelessness,” he said.
“We need to expand access to Housing First and tangata whenua-led responses, create more immediate and safe shelter options, and rapidly scale up mental health and addiction services.”
Alrudaini said he was encouraged to now be in “constructive conversation” with ministers and officials.
Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson told RNZ any enforcement approach would be “totally and utterly ineffective”.
“People who are rough sleeping are human beings, and any kind of enforcement approach is not only not good, but it’s also ineffective,” she said.
“All it simply does is either delay or literally move the person, and therefore all the needs associated with that person down the road – both literally and metaphorically. The answer here is more homes and more support.”
– RNZ