Rough times for those without a place to sleep

Many Auckland ratepayers are up in arms in regards to a very minor fund recently unveiled by the government. $500,000 has been allocated (yes that’s the lower quartile cost of housing for a two bedroom house in South Auckland), for emergency housing for Auckland’s homeless.

Across Auckland there are thousands of homeless people who are in need of housing, many of these are using housing trusts and good-will organizations such as the Salvation Army’s offerings or other religious based organizations who offer these types of housing.

The government needs to begin investing more heavily in providing for the homeless and not caring about public backlash in relation to this. Above I mentioned that many ratepayers are upset and why is that? Well, it’s simple – because this is tax payers money and obviously with other issues around housing being of a bigger concern these people are upset.

So what to do? Well it is very simple, there are a few issues which need to be investigated and these haven’t been mentioned. “Ghost Housing”, “overseas investment” and obviously the lack of support for the homeless. All these factors come into play and are causing significant strains on both society and the economy, which are upsetting people significantly.

The government has also allocated over another $300,000 over three years as part of it’s ten year plan to provide support to those who are homeless – however these funds aren’t for emergency housing, merely to go towards existing emergency housing to help support these organizations.

Many people in the know want further action to be taken, it only takes a stroll up Queen street to see how bad the problem is. On Saturday night I walked up the street and counted over 40 people either begging or sleeping rough and it made my heart heavy to realize how many kiwis are in need and don’t have a home to go to, whereas the rest of Auckland is finding it hard to afford their first home. There are so many people struggling to find somewhere to lay their head and this issue is only going to get worse.

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By Clark Valmont

ENDS

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