We cannot invisibly solve homelessness: an open letter
Updated: 2/04/25
Contributors: Zach, Jamie (lived experience, quoted in italics), Justin (Domino Effect metaphor and Day/Night Centre specifications)
There is some consolation in that we are far away from the crises in Palestine, the US, and the Ukraine. We can store these horrors nearly away and focus instead on our day-to-day lives. The same cannot be said for the homeless within our own communities. They are out on the street, exposed, a jarring interruption to our comfort.
Our organisation, Waimanako, sits in New Plymouth CBD, right at its heart. A cheery flag outside our inconspicuous location denotes our presence; greetings, our House Rules, and screens advertising our free workshops line our hallways. Our vocation is peer-led support in our community: we are here for anyone who needs to talk, or simply just to ‘be’.
Being community-led, we are cautious about pathologising distress, which often comes from life circumstances rather than mental health conditions. For instance, we run a cafe serving kai for koha, because mental wellbeing requires freedom from hunger. Our vision is to be a space without stratification, understanding that people with and without mental illnesses alike face struggles, and offering support to everyone.
Our mahi exposes us to societal and governmental shifts and their impacts upon our community; currently, these impacts are increased homelessness, alongside a surge in support requests.
Seeing this growing homeless population cycled repeatedly through the Police system as incidents unfolded, without resolution or long-term support, we elected to take action. We unequivocally support housing-first, but this is tragically beyond our scope, so our research concerned alternative support interventions. We learned that building relationships with street whānau – understanding their needs and situation in order to support them into shelter alongside other services – still has value, and is the best we can offer at present.
To undertake this, we developed the Ngāmotu Street Initiative (NSI), a programme which saw remarkable success. In collaboration with other services, our kaimahi have supported multiple people into housing, while also leading discussions on potential longer-term solutions.
However, supporting our street whānau has sadly harmed our reputation and relationships, not least because a vacant shop front neighbouring ours is what some street whānau call home. This encampment has distressed businesses and townspeople alike; some wonder whether our support is its cause. When interviewed by the local press, the street whānau actually attributed their settlement to the shop’s overhang, which helps to keep them dry. We accept the concern at the presence of support services in our communities and cities, however.
Our proximity to this controversy provides a fantastic opportunity to explore these allegations, alongside other complex feelings regarding our street whānau.
Othering
Fear, negative experience and, sometimes, a tendency to distance ourselves from those who sleep rough makes it easy to believe that the homeless live a life apart from our own.
At Waimanako, we see that this is not remotely the case:
Jamie, Waimanako Pou Tiaki:
‘One evening, there was a disturbance in the street. I discovered a man, unknown to me, who was wandering up and down outside the cafe, shouting loudly. I approached him. He was troubled and had been drinking. Confident in my training, I invited him to join me in a space where we could talk.
We sat together on the floor, and I waited for over an hour, until he had de-escalated. We brought him a feed and some coffee, which he dove into with gusto. It was the first time that he’d eaten in three days. I asked if he would share his story with me.
He had recently arrived in Taranaki to reconnect with his estranged daughter and grandchildren. The encounter played out badly. We talked about parenthood, and he expressed his regret for the complete mess that he felt he had made. Considering his own formative years as a child, he reflected on parallels. He cried, and I comforted him.
We then began to sketch out solutions, and resources that we might connect him into.
Nearly three years later, we occasionally cross paths. He always relates how that conversation was a reset moment. Throughout his life, he had felt that he was the only one who had made such mistakes. When I acknowledged my own shortcomings, and that we weren’t so different, his dammed up shame released, and there were shared tears – ultimately enabling support from multiple community services.
He is now employed, lives in a private rental, and regularly sees his daughter and grandchildren. He has been sober for two and a half years.’
‘Othering’ individuals can reinforce stratification, concerns about judgement, toxic shame, and prejudice based on hearsay or broader misconceptions. It treats those it targets as monolithic, which is never a fair perception.
Our local street whānau population includes those:
- who regularly donate when their benefit comes through, covering more than the kai we give them
- who fiercely protect our organisation, for example, actively curtailing vandalism in our space
- briefly out unhoused and those who have been homeless for years
- embarrassed by their contemporaries’ distressed conduct, entering our spaces abashed and apologetic
- who greet our staff with hugs and wide smiles, deeply grateful for our support
They band together due to circumstance, but they are people – as diverse as any other group.
A Chosen Lifestyle
Homelessness is commonly viewed as a choice – direct or otherwise. If people worked harder, stopped abusing substances, or otherwise improved, they would not be on the street. The reality, however, is immensely complex.
Homelessness is a terrifying prospect: viewing it as a personal (and therefore controllable) outcome not only fits our society’s meritocratic bent; it also protects us from anxieties that it could befall us.
To counter this perception, our NSI team use the ‘domino effect metaphor’:
Imagine your job, home, health, family, and social network as dominoes in a line. With all the dominoes are standing, your is life balanced and secure. However, if one domino falls, it can cause a chain reaction.
1. If you lose your job, you may become unable to pay for housing, healthcare, and daily necessities.
2. Without a steady income, eviction or foreclosure can follow quickly. Without a stable home, securing a job becomes even harder.
3. The stress from losing your home can damage physical and mental health, potentially exacerbating existing conditions and creating new ones.
4. Homelessness and poor health can strain family relationships. You might lose support from loved ones who cannot help.
5. With your job, home, health, and family all impacted, your social network might be the final domino. Finding a job or shelter then becomes harder still: isolation and lost community support can render stability even more remote.
Once the chain reaction starts, it can be challenging to stop. Setting the dominoes up also takes time, patience, and resources – which are often compromised along the way.
With more privilege and more capital – social or financial – stopping the dominoes is simpler, so some might not experience homelessness amidst challenging times. Not everyone is so lucky, however. Our homeless whānau often hear advice starting with: ‘Why don’t you just…?’ This overlooks the dominoes that may be crushing them.
'You are encouraging antisocial behaviour'
Waimanako operates with some simple House Rules, including zero tolerance for abusive language, discrimination, drunkenness, and intimidating behaviour. Many people enter our space seeking support – and may be dissuaded if someone else behaves unacceptably line.
Our team – many with their own vulnerabilities – also face heightened behaviour. For example:
‘I was serving in the cafe when someone entered and chose me, as someone in uniform. He was very heightened, and started shouting at me.
I attempted to help him de-escalate, and, after a little while, I asked him to leave – concerned for the others present, including multiple children.
I suggested we move somewhere less public. He refused, and strode out, shouting at several people in the street who happened to be around.
I followed him at a distance. He sat down on a bench and put his head in his hands. After a few minutes, I approached and asked if I could sit with him.
Eventually, he began to share his situation: he had been stood down from work that day. He apologised for his behaviour, explaining that he had lost the plot and it just came out.’
Angry outbursts often express the pain we are feeling – unfortunately, we all sometimes let these out at the wrong place, wrong time, and in the wrong way.
Antisocial behaviour in the CBD is not exclusive to any group. We experience the same from teenagers and people with steady jobs. We all have ugly moments; but often we are privileged enough to have a home to guard our privacy in these moments. Moreover, those on the street generally live in survival mode – which, as humans, shuts off our ability to reason and rationalise, instead triggering a fight, flight, or freeze response. When we have greater comforts, our needs may be met sufficiently to respond calmly instead.
‘They are here because you are feeding them’
We hear this assertion most weeks, and do not see its evidential basis. Rough sleepers were present in the CBD before Waimanako’s existence, and, since its establishment, have congregated in multiple locations.
Recall the ‘survival mode’ mentioned above. Hunger especially exacerbates distress. We probably all recognise that low blood sugar can worsen mood and cognitive function: if you’ve not eaten for three days, the next meal can be an absolute essential. Food aid programmes can prevent crime by readily addressing these needs.
‘Inevitably, the first thing I do when meeting with any person experiencing distress is to offer a hot drink and some comforting food.
Our adrenal glands are responsible for producing hormones tied to the fight-or-flight response. When we sit and eat, our cortisol levels moderate. In turn, our adrenal activity decreases.
Eating activates our parasympathetic nervous system, aka the “rest-and-digest” system. This promotes relaxation, counteracting fight-or-flight.
Kai helps us to feel cared for – a community setting like Waimanako offers human acceptance. This helps to make us feel safe.’
Remove these services, and we wonder what the upsides would be.
Some perceive our support as ‘encouraging’ homelessness. Consider what it would be like, losing your home, possessions, and your job. Imagine living on the street; imagine the stigma and safety concerns you would face.
Do guaranteed free hot meals make this lifestyle appealing? (Remember that Waimanako offers this to everyone). Would you enjoy relying upon charities and kindness for your basic needs?
Treating our street whānau as people, who deserve basic care, does not encourage homelessness. It makes their lives slightly more bearable, which can ultimately improve their circumstances – when in survival mode, you cannot consider long-term plans.
Shifting the problem
‘I’ve slept on the streets five times in my life. It was anything other than restful. Apart from the biting cold and the wet, I was terrified that someone was going to steal my stuff or attack me while I slept.
It is easy for me to forget gratitude for having a home, a family, a pantry, employment, and all the blessings flowing from these.
When affordable housing and available jobs are at an undeniably critical shortage, it is unfortunate that we are tempted to disparage or judge those who have neither.
It is not hard to imagine who is last in line for these two key essentials – those for whom we might claim that, “they don’t want a place to live”, or – “they should get a job”.
Without solutions, the best anyone can achieve is relocation. Make it impossible for people to congregate in one place, and the only outcome is to move elsewhere. Some years ago, when my angry, loud, abusive neighbour moved away, I have to admit to being thankful. The elderly lady next to whom he moved inherited this situation instead, and was far more impacted. Still, he was no longer my problem.’
Living costs, housing, and unemployment harming our nation are readily acknowledged as a threefold crisis, and would exist with or without our services.
Policy responses to homelessness commonly focus on ‘hiding’ the problem: criminalising street drinking, implementing antisocial behaviour charges, and evicting people from public spaces. What happens to people if they have no home, but are barred from a city centre and its minimal comforts (like public toilets and overhangs)? They still have to exist somewhere.
Our organisation also runs a rural suicide prevention retreat. Our presence there prompted discomfort identical to that in the CBD: ‘it’s important work, but it shouldn’t happen here’. No matter our location, stigmatised people accessing our services will cause distress. Just like our street whānau, we cannot simply disappear – not without stopping our ‘important work’. Our centrality is key; we do not expect people reliant on walking, cycling, public transport – or who struggle to afford petrol – to travel long distances to access support.
We also acknowledge that businesses are facing higher living costs and recession, and suffer further when the homeless dissuade potential customers with their presence. Everyone should be safe in their city and their workplace. We are deeply sympathetic to this, and also feel its impacts.
As aforementioned, the NSI is not a long-term solution to homelessness. If the housing, living cost, and unemployment crises are to persist, what sustainable alternatives exist?
Provision of solutions
The NSI is currently collaborating with multiple local services to explore developing separate Day and Night Centres for our street whānau, with transportation between the two.
The Day Centre will provide trauma informed engagement, alongside social, health, and employment support. It will offer kai; case management; a place to congregate; and guidelines to maintain safety and productivity. The Night Centre will provide safe, dignified overnight accommodation with sleeping spaces; shower and laundry facilities; and support staff. Together, the Centres will address immediate needs, while providing pathways to stable housing.
We cannot solve homelessness invisibly, nor would we want to – we are proud to offer our services to everyone. Despite any stigma a community may face, we will still extend aroha to them – indeed, often stigmatised communities need our support the most.
We hope that this piece will help to overcome harmful misconceptions regarding our street whānau and cultivate compassion, understanding that this situation hurts the homeless – while also hurting businesses and disconcerting the public. It is systematically unpleasant, with only the societal circumstances at its roots to blame. The energy arising from our discomfort and frustration is thus best used developing solutions.
Ngā mihi nui,
Zach, Jamie, Justin – and the whole Ngāmotu Street Initiative Team.