1. Job
Your job is often the first domino in the line. If you lose your job, the loss of income can make it impossible to pay for housing, healthcare, and daily necessities.
2. Home
Without a steady income, the next domino to fall might be your home. Eviction or foreclosure can follow quickly when rent or mortgage payments are missed. Without a stable place to live, securing a job and managing your health becomes even harder.
3. Health
Losing your home can lead to a decline in physical and mental health. Falling seriously ill or sustaining an injury can also become majorly destabilising. The stress of homelessness can exacerbate existing health conditions and create new ones.
4. Family
Homelessness and poor health can strain family relationships. You might lose the support of loved ones who can no longer help.
5. Social Network
With your job, home, health, and family all impacted, your social network might be the final domino to fall. Without a support network, finding new job opportunities or temporary shelter becomes more difficult. Isolation and the loss of community support can make it even harder to recover and regain stability.
As each domino falls, the stability of your life is further compromised. Once the chain reaction starts, it can be challenging to stop it and set the dominoes back up. Setting the dominoes up also takes time, patience, and resources – all things that are compromised along the way.
With more privilege and more capital – social or financial – there’s more in reserve to set back up the dominoes, so those who have this privilege and capital might not experience homelessness when challenging times come. This, however, isn’t the case for everyone. We often hear advice given to our homeless whānau that starts out
like: ‘Why don’t you just….’ This line of questioning is ignorant to the weight of all the dominoes that may be on top of them.
By highlighting how interconnected and fragile the elements of life are and how quickly things can unravel leading to homelessness, we hope to foster greater understanding and empathy.
Why can’t these people just go on the benefit?
For one thing, our welfare system remains inequitable and hostile. However, the reason most often cited for the benefit not being able to cover costs is the exorbitant rise in rents – that is, a lack of affordable housing. With a lack of housing options, private rentals often have a significant amount of inquiries, and those with larger budgets are able to out-bid those with less capital. People aren’t given a true choice when the decision is between food or rent.
The median weekly rent for New Plymouth district – as of 1 Jan 2025 – is $600 per week. The Taranaki Housing Initiative Trust has identified that, of the 10 suburbs in the country that have had the greatest increase in rents over the last four years, five of these suburbs are in New Plymouth. This includes suburbs like Marfell – an area where, prior to 2020, people might have been able to find more affordable housing/rent.
Many are citing the changes to emergency housing rules as leading to the increase in homelessness. This is, ultimately, a national issue.