Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Today is
Speaker 2: World Homeless Day, where organizations around the globe shed light
Speaker 2: on the issue. Right now, more than two percent of
Speaker 2: New Zealanders are without a home. Stats and Z figures
Speaker 2: show more than one hundred and twelve thousand people are
Speaker 2: now severely housing deprived across the country. In Auckland, there's
Speaker 2: been a fifty three percent increase in rough sleeping since
Speaker 2: late last year. Manarki Rangatahi aims to end youth homelessness
Speaker 2: in Altieroa. New Zealand CEO Bianca Johanson is with us
Speaker 2: today on the Front Page to discuss how as a
Speaker 2: country we can make this happen. So, Bianka, how bad
Speaker 2: is homelessness among our young people?
Speaker 3: Well, we don't have the data and the stats, so
Speaker 3: we're always asking the government to help us fund and
Speaker 3: research that. So we don't know the massive size of
Speaker 3: the problem. We do know that special needs grants back
Speaker 3: in twenty three early twenty four were around over five
Speaker 3: thousand per year, So that's for emergency housing. Back when
Speaker 3: there was emergency housing available. I think it's now down
Speaker 3: to the you know, the sort of the hundreds. We
Speaker 3: do know that doctor Terry and Clark, who did the
Speaker 3: youth two thousand research, she estimated that there was over
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand rangatahi and altied or that are facing
Speaker 3: housing and security and homelessness. So it's a pretty big
Speaker 3: stat because internationally, youth homelesses is often hidden because of
Speaker 3: the CouchSurfing and staying at other people's places and you know,
Speaker 3: going from place to place looking for somewhere stable to live.
Speaker 2: And that's what people don't realize. Hey, homelessness isn't just
Speaker 2: your rough sleepers out in the street that you might
Speaker 2: be who are visible to us. What else does it include?
Speaker 3: Oh, look, there's a growing older woman's homelessness in this
Speaker 3: country and internationally of course with the recession and the
Speaker 3: economic issues that everybody's facing, increasing house prices, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and also our coma to acquire our elderly people. But
Speaker 3: ford Angitahi, the research is really clear if we start
Speaker 3: and preventing and ending youth homelessness will make a massive
Speaker 3: difference in the outcomes and the statistics for those that
Speaker 3: are older. So the older street is because I used
Speaker 3: to work for Life Wise Trust in the Central City
Speaker 3: and Tarmaki there and all of them that I've spoken
Speaker 3: to that are aroundy plus housing and security and homeless
Speaker 3: has started when they were young people and wards of
Speaker 3: the state and coming out of care and situations like
Speaker 3: that far no breakdowns, abuse of far noo. For many
Speaker 3: of them, it started when they were young.
Speaker 2: We've had Matama Davidson on the Greens co leader. We've
Speaker 2: spoken to her before about the fact that when you
Speaker 2: leave ordering a tamariki or state care, the government isn't
Speaker 2: actually legally required to make sure that you go into
Speaker 2: you have a safe accommodation, a safe home to go into.
Speaker 1: You would think that the least we can do for
Speaker 1: these children who have been in the system and are
Speaker 1: coming out of care, young children, that the least we
Speaker 1: can do is provide them with that really basic support
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives to be able to flourish.
Speaker 1: What we are seeing, however, and hearing right now, is
Speaker 1: that young people, even with advocates and support workers, are
Speaker 1: being told at every stop, sorry, we cannot help you.
Speaker 2: I suppose this is something that's not news to you.
Speaker 3: Yes, not news to me. Around eight hundred to one
Speaker 3: thousand young people every year are transitioning out of aut
Speaker 3: atomitiicy care and a lot of them run away before
Speaker 3: there is sixteen actually, so we've got a lot of
Speaker 3: young people. I mean, I could take you around the
Speaker 3: Auckland CBD right now and we'll have children and young
Speaker 3: people that are hiding out underage, you know, perhaps looking
Speaker 3: a bit older, but are actually younger and do have
Speaker 3: guardianship and custody orders from Autongtomitiki that are sleeping rough
Speaker 3: right now, and Autongtomitiche have no idea where the young
Speaker 3: people are. I mean, if you have children, I have children.
Speaker 3: My children are older, but when they were children, when
Speaker 3: they were twelve and fifteen, I knew where they were.
Speaker 3: The state does not know where all of their people
Speaker 3: that they have custody and care for actually are. So yeah,
Speaker 3: we've got eight hundred to one thousand young people that
Speaker 3: are exiting care every year, and they're exiting into nothing.
Speaker 3: They're often disconnected from FARNO because there hasn't been a
Speaker 3: relationship kept with FARNO. So the trajectory of their lives
Speaker 3: and the outcomes that will be their future in terms
Speaker 3: of homelessness and housing is pretty dire because they don't
Speaker 3: have faro in those natural community supports to go to,
Speaker 3: so homelessness can be an inevitability for a vast majority,
Speaker 3: especially our Dangatahimori who are overrepresented in the care statistics.
Speaker 3: So it's really grim with auto Atomitiki. I know that
Speaker 3: they do have youth transitions housing, but there's not enough.
Speaker 3: There's not enough in the country for the need that's there.
Speaker 3: That's what we've.
Speaker 2: Seen when it comes to you said that if you
Speaker 2: take me down to Auckland CBD right now, you'd be
Speaker 2: able to show me some young people living rough. Yes,
Speaker 2: what are some of the stories that you've heard from
Speaker 2: the ground.
Speaker 3: From the ground is that young people don't have any
Speaker 3: front facing information. So if you're a young person in
Speaker 3: alt or tonight, there is nowhere for you to go
Speaker 3: and you're homeless. There's no housing there never has been,
Speaker 3: and no shelters, not for young people, so you can't
Speaker 3: actually have a tendency agreement if you're eighteen and under.
Speaker 3: Many of our Angertahi that come into supported youth housing
Speaker 3: and youth housing specific are usually under twenty. You know,
Speaker 3: that's the vast majority that are looking for support so
Speaker 3: young people are saying, look, there's no front facing information,
Speaker 3: I can't find where to go. Many of them, if
Speaker 3: they go into MSD, are not even able to make
Speaker 3: it to the reception receptionist desk to be able to
Speaker 3: get the support that they need. And if they do
Speaker 3: make it past the receptionist, which is usually quite a
Speaker 3: bias and can be a very aggressive and oppressive process
Speaker 3: for them to actually get to see somebody about their needs.
Speaker 3: But if you're a young person, say you're in Auckland,
Speaker 3: you're in Queen Street and there's MSD there on Queen
Speaker 3: Street for you to be able to make it into
Speaker 3: Queen Street, MISD make it to the receptionist desk, they
Speaker 3: will ask you to go to a youth payment provider.
Speaker 3: Those are the people that usually pick up young people
Speaker 3: who are experiencing their first out of homelessness or housing
Speaker 3: and security and they need somewhere to go tonight. So
Speaker 3: the nearest youth payment provider to Queen Street is an IPSOM,
Speaker 3: so they're expected without any income, without usually an at
Speaker 3: hop card or anything like that, having to go all
Speaker 3: the way to IPSOM to the nearest youth payment provider
Speaker 3: to get that kind of support. So there's a lot
Speaker 3: of gaps in the system that ungatahi can fall down.
Speaker 3: And this is what we are very very concerned about
Speaker 3: as Manarchi Dungatahi, that too many of our young people
Speaker 3: fall down the gaps. And while they're falling down the gaps,
Speaker 3: they get into really unsafe situations because they are the
Speaker 3: most vulnerable out there in that kind of street community
Speaker 3: and culture by virtue of their age.
Speaker 2: And even building up the courage to take yourself to
Speaker 2: MSD in the first place, and never mind actually getting
Speaker 2: past the receptionist and things like that. I mean, it
Speaker 2: must be really difficult for these lungatahi. Do they stick
Speaker 2: together mostly or building community? What's the community like?
Speaker 3: Are so varied in terms of, you know, how they
Speaker 3: do things. We often don't get a lot of our
Speaker 3: young men coming into youth housing because they tend to
Speaker 3: be quite sort of independent. So you've got all sorts
Speaker 3: of stories and experiences happening for people. We've got lgbtqi
Speaker 3: plus rang a tahi that are getting kicked out of home,
Speaker 3: usually because they have been coming out or because of
Speaker 3: their sexuality. So that particular cohort find it really difficult
Speaker 3: because there isn't something specific for our rainbow youth to
Speaker 3: go to in terms of safe housing, especially if you're transgender,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Then we've got our autotamitikidng a tahi that
Speaker 3: are transitioning out of care. And then you've got anatahi
Speaker 3: who have had some care experience in their lives, like
Speaker 3: their lives have been touched by the state in terms
Speaker 3: of investigations or things like that, and they have grown older,
Speaker 3: the house is overcrowded, they're perhaps encouraged to move on,
Speaker 3: or they're leaving unsafe fino situations where you know there's
Speaker 3: abuse or addiction issues and they just can't tolerate living
Speaker 3: in that situation anymore.
Speaker 4: I was not prepared well to leave care. If I
Speaker 4: was prepared well to leave KRE, I would have been
Speaker 4: supported to find alternative accommodation. I would have been provided
Speaker 4: with financial advisors to be able to make better financial decisions.
Speaker 4: They would have supported me to get into the workforce.
Speaker 5: In saying that though I am in the workforce, but
Speaker 5: also that took a lot of my own work to
Speaker 5: be able to be better equipped to help our most
Speaker 5: vulnerable Tamida ge arang Attai and Faro involved with.
Speaker 2: TIMID at the moment, does the government legally have to
Speaker 2: make sure that every young person has a place to live?
Speaker 3: No, No, there's no youth strategy the government barely. We
Speaker 3: don't even in al tedor have an age that we
Speaker 3: say are youth. There's no real definition. I mean sixteen
Speaker 3: to twenty four you are considered a young person. But
Speaker 3: that's what we've been advocating and hustling for as a
Speaker 3: collective where the only youth housing and homeless collective and
Speaker 3: ul tedwer and we use that power of collective impact
Speaker 3: to advocate for change. We have sat with ministers and said,
Speaker 3: you know, we need a youth strategy specific for dungcita
Speaker 3: Het because the research internationally is very clear we need
Speaker 3: to start with uncita heat if we were going to
Speaker 3: have any funds available, which by the way, this government
Speaker 3: has actually taken away twenty million dollars of the youth
Speaker 3: housing funding an altered wor put it towards ad Angitahi.
Speaker 3: Because there is the prevention there. You can make a
Speaker 3: massive difference. That's what we're calling on this government and
Speaker 3: any other government that comes in the future and previous
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: I mean, because how young are these kids who are
Speaker 2: living rough.
Speaker 3: So we have a provider, the Pride Project that are
Speaker 3: out in many dwa. They are picking up young people
Speaker 3: from the bus stops and other places that are not
Speaker 3: wanting to go home, and they're eight or nine years old.
Speaker 3: It can vary. There's the whole you know, there's a
Speaker 3: whole massive continuum from actual children to young people. But
Speaker 3: as I said, you know, most young people are presenting
Speaker 3: anywhere from around thirteen years old up to twenty years old.
Speaker 3: Of course they can't come into youth housing it's only
Speaker 3: for sixteen to twenty. But each youth housing provider has
Speaker 3: their own kind of criteria and youth housing is the
Speaker 3: place that we advocate for young people to come into
Speaker 3: and supported youth housing, not adult transitional housing. So a
Speaker 3: sixteen year old being an adult transitional housing. We've got
Speaker 3: all sorts of ages, typically mainly men and others. It's
Speaker 3: not a safe space d ang tahi to be.
Speaker 2: So let me get this. There's no place if you
Speaker 2: were to pick up a thirteen year old in the
Speaker 2: middle of Auckland who has been sleeping rough, where would
Speaker 2: you take them? There's no where to take them.
Speaker 3: Specifically, no that's the role of tapata Key.
Speaker 2: So there's no youth housing situation. No, you must be
Speaker 2: so frustrated.
Speaker 3: It is really frustrated because we don't have either a
Speaker 3: street outreach really that's looking for these for youth specific
Speaker 3: and that's one of the things that we're working with
Speaker 3: with HAD of course are responsible for home land business
Speaker 3: and you know those that are sleeping rough and altas,
Speaker 3: so we have been talking to them about having a
Speaker 3: youth street outreach. Earlier this year we went to the
Speaker 3: and presented at the first Preventing Youth Homelessness conference ever
Speaker 3: in the world. We were the only New Zealand delegates
Speaker 3: that went and you know presented there and everywhere has
Speaker 3: youth street outreach you know emergency youth facilities. You know
Speaker 3: they're tackling and actually acknowledged that there's a problem with
Speaker 3: youth homelessness. We have really yet to have this government
Speaker 3: or subsequent governments actually acknowledged we have a youth housing problem.
Speaker 2: Or even just a conversation about it.
Speaker 3: Kilda Kilder, that's right. We did have a Homelessness Minister
Speaker 3: that with this government that has been taken away and
Speaker 3: that just falls under the portfolio of Tammer Pautucker. When
Speaker 3: we have Madame and Davidson in that role, we made
Speaker 3: great advances actually, and that's where we were able to
Speaker 3: have more youth housing than that's ever been seen in
Speaker 3: Old set all. But we still have massive parts of
Speaker 3: the country that have no youth housing available. So from
Speaker 3: Westokland right up to the top of the North there
Speaker 3: is nothing for Angitahi, nothing suitable, nothing specific. We've got
Speaker 3: Napier that had massive floods and that really impacted on
Speaker 3: the housing situation there. They've got no youth housing. We've
Speaker 3: got far no living intents with children with respiratory issues.
Speaker 3: We get all sorts of you know, problems and stories
Speaker 3: and crisis coming through here. I think what's important to
Speaker 3: remember is that Leilani Faja, who is the un housing
Speaker 3: that raptur, came here in twenty twenty twenty, I think
Speaker 3: it was twenty twenty or twenty one and she announced
Speaker 3: that New Zealand is having not a housing crisis but
Speaker 3: a human rights crisis. So you can't advance. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's very rich for the government to be calling on
Speaker 3: young people must work, work, work. It's very hard to
Speaker 3: go to work when you don't have safe, warm, dry,
Speaker 3: secure housing, to have a good night's sleeping and to
Speaker 3: advance yourself.
Speaker 2: If you were to change something tomorrow, no questions asked.
Speaker 2: There's a money tree out the back. What would you do?
Speaker 3: Money tree out the back. Actually, I had one of
Speaker 3: the ministers say to me, look, if I gave you
Speaker 3: thirty million dollars, what would you do. It's not just
Speaker 3: about increasing the youth housing supply, because we could build
Speaker 3: five thousand more houses tomorrow and that's not going to
Speaker 3: do everything. Yes, the housing supply is really important, but
Speaker 3: we need to have a strategy as a country. We
Speaker 3: need to look at putting funding into prevention. We need
Speaker 3: to have research and data. You know, there's a whole
Speaker 3: lot of things that we could do and too of
Speaker 3: healing for our young people. I mean, I would want
Speaker 3: to actually redevelop the whole system and look at all
Speaker 3: the drivers of young people into homelessness and how we
Speaker 3: can actually prevent and stop that, you know, plug up
Speaker 3: the gaps. I mean I talked in a previous interview
Speaker 3: that we actually need to devolve a lot of our
Speaker 3: state kind of systems that look after young people into
Speaker 3: the community into MADI housing specific housing providers and make
Speaker 3: it so that it's easy to access support. So it's
Speaker 3: I think, yes, we need to put some money towards it,
Speaker 3: but we all need to come together, all of the ministries,
Speaker 3: all of the ministers and having across party support about
Speaker 3: how we're actually going to do something effective about this issue.
Speaker 2: And from the kid's point of view as well. I
Speaker 2: actually ask them exactly.
Speaker 3: Our angatahi and that ang a tahi that I've spoken
Speaker 3: to are very political and very politically astute, and they
Speaker 3: have solutions. They have spoken to politicians, some of them
Speaker 3: and shared their story, and you know, they want to
Speaker 3: prevent other young people going into the streets and experiencing
Speaker 3: what they have had to experience. I mean, one night
Speaker 3: of rough sleeping. I don't know if you've ever had
Speaker 3: to you know, you've been locked out of your house,
Speaker 3: or ever had to sleep a little bit rough, will
Speaker 3: sleep in your car. It's a terrible, terrible night, one
Speaker 3: that most people will never forget. And what we say
Speaker 3: is one night is one night too many of having
Speaker 3: to sleep rough.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Bianca.
Speaker 3: You're welcome. Thank you for having me Kilda.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can Read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at nsidherld, dot co, dot MZ. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who was also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 2: in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.