Future problem looming with no homelessness strategy says Lifewise CEO

“Lots of agencies will talk to you about homeless people that they’re working with. They’re working families; they’re often people who have both parents working and still can’t afford to live in cities like Auckland. They’re young people who don’t have strong family support.

“Cities and governments that have dealt with this well have dealt with it intentionally, they’ve joined the dots. They’ve lined up their policies. So a strategy is really important.”

Ms Lawler says the community is often left picking up the slack from a lack of Government urgency.

“We’re raising money to ensure that people are securely and affordably housed, when most people would regard that as a human right and something the government should take a really strong interest in.

Ms Lawler says Kiwis are only now realising the scale of the issue.

“It’s an issue that New Zealanders have really started to understand in the last year, and really started to raise their voice that this is not the New Zealand that we want.

“But I think also we’ve been slow to connect it with its root causes. We’ve been slow to talk about the link between homelessness and our housing crisis and the link between homelessness and family poverty.”