Wellington City Council 2 of 12

Transcription

1 May 2017

2 Contents Introduction... 3 What is homelessness?... 3 Why are people homeless or sleeping rough?... 4 Begging and homelessness... 5 Te Mahana: Ending homelessness in Wellington. A strategy for What is Housing First?... 6 Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi... 6 The Street Outreach Team... 6 Strategic Leadership Group (SLG)... 7 Key deliverables for the SLG are:... 7 The SLG has developed an action plan which includes three projects How it all works together... 8 Understanding our homeless How many homeless/rough sleepers are there in Wellington? The Living Lab Project What else does WCC do to support Te Mahana? Social housing Funding Our challenges Our collaborators What can you do? Wellington City Council 2 of 12

3 Introduction Homelessness in our country and our city is not new. Nor is WCC s response to the issue. As well as being a provider of social housing, WCC has been involved in responding to homelessness for many years. We set up a Homeless Taskforce in 2003, developed our first homeless strategy in 2004 and have funded many agencies in our city that work at the coalface of the issue. Over time it has become clear that the issue of homelessness is complex. People become homeless for a wide variety of reasons many of which compound over time. The homeless in our city are not a homogenous group and they have needs specific to their situation. We think that the best approach is to work collaboratively with other agencies to work directly with the homeless people we are trying to assist. This approach is the foundation of our city wide strategy to end homelessness by Te Mahana. What is homelessness? It is more than we see on our streets and in our parks. The Government s definition of homelessness is: living situations where people have no other options to acquire safe and secure housing. This includes people who are: Without shelter living on the street, in a shack or in a car In temporary accommodation such as the Night Shelter or a Refuge Sharing accommodation overcrowded houses with family members or sleeping on friends couches Uninhabitable housing dilapidated buildings or housing that is uninhabitable due to damp or lack of facilities We know that homelessness in our city is perceived to be a significant problem but it is those without shelter that have become more visible to many of our citizens and our businesses. These people are often described as the street homeless and for many of them their situation is complex and chronic. Wellington City Council 3 of 12

4 Why are people homeless or sleeping rough? Homeless people are not a homogenous group but there are some experiences which can affect all people and which can lead to homelessness. The chart below illustrates some of what homeless people have told us about their lives. Unemployment or underemployment Relationship breakdown Prejudice in housing market Release from prison Physical violence Alcohol addiction Debt Could not access social services Drug addiction Poverty Sexual violence Benefit cut or suspended Mental health issues Eviction from home Ill health Discharge from hospital Sexual abuse Lost touch with family/whanau Shame/stigma Disability Criminal record Family tragedy Moved cities Cultural alienation or disconnection No ID/bank account Brain injury Deafness Kicked out of home People may experience one or more of these life events and the consequences can compound over time. In 2014 WCC ran a seminar with support agencies to highlight the particular issues some homeless groups may face. For example, homeless women are more likely to have experienced sexual violence or abuse; Maori (who make up the majority of our homeless) may be disconnected from their cultural or spiritual roots, whanau or Iwi; Pacific people may feel they have shamed their family or church in some way and have moved away. These differences matter in how we respond to the needs of homeless people. We also know that we are beginning to see other groups of homeless people on our streets for example, Asian and transsexual people, who may have different experiences and needs. Street homeless people are likely to have had more than one of these experiences. Some may have been homeless for a short time and for others it is a chronic and long term way of life. The concept of rough sleepers making a choice to live on the street is complex. Research with homeless people (in Auckland) 1 suggests that many rough sleepers made a choice to live on the street while caught between a rock and a hard place. Many homeless in Wellington will be accessing some services such as the Soup Kitchen, the DCM food bank and mental health services, the Night shelter or lunches at the City Mission. While for some people homelessness is an isolated, frightening and desolate experience, others also find themselves part of a street community where they make friends and get support and information. Some people will miss this community when they move into stable housing. The Auckland research also highlighted the fact that once housed, creating a home is not straightforward. 1 An insight into the experience of sleeping rough in central Auckland, January 2015, Lifewise, Auckland Council, Auckland City Mission and ThinkPlace centralakl.pdf Wellington City Council 4 of 12

5 Begging and homelessness Begging is a national issue. Wellingtonians now frequently see people begging on our streets. There are many reasons why people beg for food, money or even work. In 2016 WCC funded a project to help us better understand begging from the perspective of those who are begging, city retailers and members of the public who observe begging 2. It is a complex issue and the Council is committed to both active begging management on our streets and initiating a coordinated approach to some of the longer term issues. Some, but not all, of these people are homeless. However, many are vulnerable to being homeless. Te Mahana: Ending homelessness in Wellington. A strategy for Te Mahana is a concept that speaks of the warmth found in a supportive home environment. The name Te Mahana was gifted to the strategy by Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust. It points to Wellington being a place where people who have found themselves without a home have the opportunity and means to experience Te Mahana, the warmth of home. Te Mahana emerged from the collective vision of over 100 people in 2012 government agencies, community organisations and people experiencing homelessness. Central to their vision was an inter-sectoral and coordinated approach to ending homelessness and that the particular housing solutions for Maori would be addressed in line with the Treaty of Waitangi. Fundamental to the strategy is that, as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, housing is a basic human right. It called for work at three levels: Stop homelessness happening Deal with it quickly when people become homeless Stop people becoming homeless again Achieving this means operating at many levels from influencing key structures and policies in our country that can exacerbate the likelihood of homelessness to trying to assist people to resolve or manage personal circumstances that can spiral into being homeless. It involves many players. WCC has funded community organisations working in the area of homelessness in Wellington for many years. In 2015, after examining the relationship of its current funding model to the Te Mahana strategy WCC decided that it needed to align funding to Te Mahana outcomes. In practice this meant that the WCC funding focus shifted to interagency collaboration and a client centred approach with housing being the first priority (sometimes called Housing First). 2 Begging in Wellington An exploration into our community s issue, March 2016, WCC and ThinkPlace Wellington City Council 5 of 12

6 What is Housing First? Housing First is an international approach that centres on providing homeless people with secure housing as quickly as possible instead of requiring people to graduate through a series of steps before getting into permanent housing. People are supported to remain housed through accessing other health or life services they may need and by active tenancy support. Experience has shown that effective Housing First programmes need to be appropriately resourced in terms of access to affordable or social housing and support expertise. Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi As a result of the 2014 service funding review the Council now funds Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi. It is a collaborative project run by three community agencies experienced in working with our vulnerable communities DCM, Ngati Kahungunu Whanau Services and the Soup Kitchen. Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi offers services to the homeless and to those at risk of becoming homeless. The services include street outreach and assessment and case management. Te Whakamura has a management team made up of a manager from each of the three organisations, and six paid staff - two outreach staff, two case managers, a team leader and a project manager whose primary role is to support the Te Mahana Strategic Leadership Group. The Street Outreach Team As well as monitoring street activity, Te Whakamura street outreach staff are the front line people who respond to alerts from the public, other agencies or the Council call centre when there are concerns about someone sleeping rough or in some difficulty on the street. The outreach service also includes about twelve of the organisations involved in the development of Te Mahana. They have initiated a rostered daily outreach walks (6 days a week) around Wellington streets to check in with the street community, especially those that are begging, rough sleeping or where there is a concern about a person s well-being. They get to know our street community pretty well and are alert to newcomers who may need a hand. The Te Whakamura team leader coordinates the roster and trains the volunteers from the participating organisations. The street outreach team is key in delivering one of Te Mahana s objectives of strengthening collaborative working relationships between city organisations. It refers people to the Te Whakamura case management team for housing assessment and support. Te Whakamura has priority access to 10 Housing NZ houses. Wellington City Council 6 of 12

7 Strategic Leadership Group (SLG) A Strategic Leadership Group was formed in mid Its purpose is To lead coordinated, city wide actions to end street homelessness in Wellington by the end of Key deliverables for the SLG are: Building leadership through a coherent and coordinated approach across all sectors; and Engaging own organisations to identify and plan towards ending homelessness; and Collectively develop, test and deliver new service models that move people quickly from crisis to stable living environments Develop shared information protocols Monitor progress and agreed outcomes Develop referrals pathways to move people from the streets into homes To influence, contribute and strengthen current policy arrangements Enable access to appropriate housing Provide staff and other resources so responses are more efficient and are effective in dealing with people who are in crisis, especially where that crisis can and will lead to homelessness The Te Whakamura project manager supports SLG by providing data and alerting them to emerging issues on the streets and generally facilitating their operation. As well as supporting operational activity around homelessness, this group has potential to comment on or influence the bigger structural and national public policy issues that impact on homelessness. SLG is chaired by our Deputy Mayor, and is made up of senior staff from a range of public and community organisations (see below). Wellington City Council 7 of 12

8 The SLG has developed an action plan which includes five projects. 1. Identify a cohort and work with them. Identify and work with a cohort of homeless people to achieve positive outcomes across the housing and other health and social domains. 2. Define the context within which homelessness in Wellington occurs. Understand the scope and scale of homelessness in Wellington and the associated complex issues the SLG is trying to address. 3. Develop alternative housing models. Consider a number of alternative housing models with a view to developing a wider range of housing options in Wellington. Wellington City Council 8 of 12

9 How it all works together Wellington City Council 9 of 12

10 Understanding our homeless Outreach workers collect data on their street observations and interactions and then load it into Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi s database. The information is then aggregated in order to monitor street activity over time. In addition, WCC Local Hosts are included in street outreach work and feed into data collection. Everyone acknowledges the importance of good data. It allows targeted service provision and monitoring of service impact. Developing and improving the consistency of outreach data is a priority for Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi. How many homeless/rough sleepers are there in Wellington? We don t really know at any one time how many people are homeless in Wellington because some kinds of homelessness are hidden from view and because not everyone sleeps rough in the central city where our outreach service mainly operates. Te Whakamura Ai Te Ahi produced their first annual report to July 2016, recording 148 people who had been contacted by street outreach. Between 1st July and 31st December 2016, the following information was recorded: 157 people were referred to Te Whakamura Ai te Ahi project 62% were men and 38% women By far the biggest proportion of these were Maori There was a steady rise in referrals including crisis referrals and in the numbers of released prisoners needing help Wellington City Council 10 of 12

11 The Living Lab Project Another current WCC project that is informing our understanding of homelessness and begging is the Living Lab project in partnership with leading technology company NEC. This project is exploring how technology can make the city safer and smarter. It is a collaborative initiative between the Council, NEC and a number of central government agencies, local retailers and residents to explore the business and community uses for sensing technology and data collection in a low risk way. The Living Lab project does two things. Firstly, it brings together the existing data of a number of agencies data such as records of accident locations, tagging incidents and notification of incidents of begging and rough sleeping. We are then able to map these reports to see at a glance where the hotspots in the central city for some activities are. The data is anonymous. This provides insights into not only hotspots that may need some intervention, but street level trends and patterns of activity. The second thing the Living Lab is doing is the positioning of two cameras/sensors in Cuba Mall. This is a pilot project. One fixed camera is activated when it detects unusual activity or movement this could be antisocial behaviour such as a street fight. The second camera runs all the time and is currently fixed at a spot in Cuba Mall where begging happens. The information from these cameras is separate from the normal CCTV information and for the purposes of the trial is only seen by senior WCC community staff. These staff will forward any alerts to other agencies such as our own Te Whakamura street outreach team. The Privacy Commission has worked with WCC to address any privacy issues. If the trial is successful, it will provide greater understanding of foot traffic flow for better urban design as well as allow a variety of agencies to collaborate to improve community wellbeing and crime prevention. What else does WCC do to support Te Mahana? Social housing Through our City Housing team, WCC provides and manages 2200 housing units and tenancy support. We provide more social housing than any other Council in NZ. Funding WCC also currently funds other agencies, such as the Night Shelter, who work with homeless and vulnerable people. Wellington City Council 11 of 12

12 Our challenges We have local and national challenges in the fight against homelessness in our community. Locally, WCC is proud of our development of a more professional, targeted and collaborative approach to the homeless on our streets. One of our immediate priorities is to maximise the use that good data on our street homelessness and our impact on their lives can have. WCC will be working with Te Whakamura to increase the consistency of data collection and more refined collation and reporting. We also know that good collaborative relationships need constant renewal and care. While WCC and our community organisations are committed to our Te Mahana goals ending homelessness in Wellington by 2020, homelessness is problem WCC cannot solve on its own. Issues of housing availability and affordability, poverty and the availability of support services for mental health and addiction etc. are national issues. Hopefully our experience and insights can contribute to national strategies and solutions. Our collaborators Many community organisations in Wellington are committed to working with people who are homeless or on the streets. The following link shows where the organisations are located and provides links to their websites for more information. What can you do? First of all, remember that the homeless and those you see begging on our streets are people! Homeless people have told us that an acknowledgement or a smile is worth a lot to them. If you encounter someone you believe to be rough sleeping, in need of advice or assistance from homeless services/organisations in the city, ring the Council and ask for a referral to be made to the Street Outreach Team info@wcc.govt.nz Wellington City Council 12 of 12