time for radical change

Sleeping rough - there is no glamour in this, it isn't cool or street - it is difficult, lonely, cold, wet, dangerous, intimidating, isolating, destructive and for many a final destination after choices are gone.

Waatea News

As winter bites, the Auckland City Mission says it has identified a record 200-plus rough sleepers around the central city, more than half of them Maori.

Yep HALF of them are Māori!!! Homeless in their own land. Discarded by many. Literally hand to mouth survival.

The new Auckland city missioner, Chris Farelly says the figure stands as further evidence that not only is Auckland experiencing a housing crisis, but that those living at the furthest extremes of poverty are suffering the most. 

He says the longer someone sleeps rough, the harder it can be to transition into living a normal life.

Yep the normal ain't normal anymore. And we have also had the news that

New statistics reveal Māori home ownership has plummeted in the past 27 years, with the rate in some parts of the North Island dropping by as much as 40 percent.
The report from Statistics New Zealand said, since 1986, the average drop in the ownership rate was 20 percent for Māori, compared with 15 percent for the total population.
"In the worst hit areas for Māori, declines in home ownership were close to 40 percent and that was in the Whangarei, southern Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua and Hastings urban areas."
The number of Māori having to rent privately had risen dramatically, she said.
"It's increased by 88.3 percent since 1986, so we know that there's been that large increase in Māori living in private rentals as well as a fall in people living in owner-occupied dwellings and that compares with a fall for the total population of 42.7 percent."

The minister nick smith says

"The fact that our Maori and Pacific people have lower rates of home ownership is just a broader reflection of the fact that they tend to have lower educational achievement, that they have lower incomes, and that translates itself into housing."

Yep cos uz Maaori r dum eh - what an dickhead smith is - a person who is pretending there are no housing issues, a minister so out of touch that every time he comes on the telly he reminds us of how inadequate, out of his league, and useless he is. He isn't helping to solve any housing problems - he is just trying to protect his very exposed arse, and it is exposed because he is ineffectual.

We DO NOT deserve this useless government with its apathetic ministers, we deserve better.

true bennett

So Paula Bennett the minister just made up the 'Flying squads' going around tapping on car windows to try and help the many homeless people living in their cars. She told the useless john key, he repeated it to show how useless the homeless were - didn't even bloody WANT help. Now the truth has come out that it was all bullshit. What an absolute disgrace of a person and if you want to see her real side watch this video - nasty, nasty, nasty!!!

The truth is many people are really struggling with the situation of no place to live - only very desperate people live in cars or vans. Māori are over-represented and everyone is suffering. Listen to this interview to hear the resilience and strength of some of our people.

People are helping as best they can but this is a structural issue that has to be fixed from top to bottom.

Does this government and its ministers care and are they going to do something? Nah better to have some more guns ($20b - yep that is billions) to shoot the desperate climate refugees soon to show up on our coastline...

creating connection and growing food

This is a great initiative. Helping people find their connections and grow food - it doesn't get much better than that!

"A group of Auckland's homeless have become part-time gardeners, thanks to a collaboration involving Ngati Whatua and the city's young business leaders.

Ngati Whatua has given up part of its "whenua rangatira", the land of its chiefs around Orakei Marae at Bastion Point, for homeless people to start a vegetable garden to supply the Auckland City Mission's foodbank.

City Mission homeless team leader Wilf Holt said varying numbers of four to six streeties had spent two days a week gardening since late September.

"In some cases people have time on their hands which, with their drug and alcohol addictions, plays into the addiction's hands," he said. "Now they are too tired at the end of the day."

He initially approached Ngati Whatua when he heard that they were holding community planting days around Matariki, the Maori New Year in July. He put the word out among the streeties, 70 per cent of whom are Maori, and took busloads of about 40 volunteers up to Orakei twice - the second time in driving rain.

"There was this wanting to participate in something larger than themselves," he said.

"There was the fact that it was on a marae. There was just this desire to perhaps reconnect."

Brilliant.

"Ngati Whatua trustee Ngarimu Blair said the iwi jumped at the chance to help.

"We are reaching a phase in our revitalisation in Auckland where we can more and more begin to look at how we can help others," he said."

Inclusive not exclusive

"The supervisor of the iwi's plant nursery, Te Hira Hawke, said the streeties were good workers.

"I always thought they were mostly drunkards," he said. "They're not. Some people here have some really hard-luck stories. They're not drink or drug-dependent, they've just had a hard time."

He appealed to the public for gardening tools, shade cloths, poles, seeds, seedlings and topsoil - "anything to do with gardening".

"We need a bit of help to help them," he said. "I know there are people out there that are kind-hearted."

So, if you can help - please do. This is a good example of community building, focusing on achieveable results. Growing food, connecting with culture, working together - these are the solutions to the problems we face. When people need a hand - we should give a hand. It could be us next time.