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Shelley Behniwal’s teenage daughters have a plan for where the family’s babies will sleep once they live in her car.
If they take the seats out of the car, Ashani, 16, and Ashonika, 14, assume they can leave the back seat flat and put a mattress across. So they should be able to fit in Arjan, 1 and Jazmeen, 3.
If they park outside their grandparents’ one-bedroom apartment, the family may be able to take turns sleeping on the floor and using the amenities.
Michelle Duff / Stuff
Dozens of homeless families in redesigned CSR shelters like the Behniwals have been told they have four weeks to leave, as the government approves the influx of temporary workers from the Pacific.
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Since Covid went on strike and Behniwal lost his job, the Hastings family have been living in emergency and transitional housing. After hopping between motels, they have spent the past five months in a repurposed temporary worker barracks in an industrial part of town.
There is no place for the children to play, no curtains, and the Behniwals were initially told that they were not allowed to put up a crib or receive visitors, including grandparents.
Now the family has been told they have four weeks to find other accommodation alongside dozens of other whānau in Hastings. They must move so incoming workers registered as seasonal employers (RSE) – for whom the home was built – can be accommodated.
Stuff
Ashar, 6, and Ashani, 16, in their transitional housing unit.
Last month, the government announced a border waiver that would allow 2,000 seasonal Pacific Island workers to enter the country to work in orchards.
But human rights defenders fear that the influx of workers in places like the sunny east coast, coupled with a boom in vacation tourism, will leave many families without temporary accommodation.
Hawke’s Bay is now one of the worst places in the country for housing. An analysis of the housing register by Stuff suggests that nearly one in 100 people in the region needs a tavern.
“These are desperate times, things will get worse over the summer and Covid has just opened all the cracks: cracks in housing, cracks in income, cracks in violence,” said Ronji Tanielu, social policy analyst for the Salvation Army. “It is a perfect storm and we are losing ground in this battle.”
Thousands of families are currently in emergency and transitional housing in New Zealand. Figures vary, but the most recent show that 9,823 people or whānau received an emergency special needs grant for motels in September. There are another 3,500 transitional homes, some of which are motels but also shelters and shelters, private homes rented by the provider or new construction.
Stuff
Three CSR worker properties like this one on Omahu Rd are being used to house the homeless.
Temporary housing parents like Behniwal must continually apply for private rentals, which they are less and less likely to obtain. “There are hardly any places here to apply,” said the single mother of five and a sick beneficiary.
”All the families here have fallen into such a serious depression, we are all in the same boat and we are trying to help each other, but we cannot because we are all homeless. It’s my son’s first Christmas and we can’t do anything, we can’t even put up Christmas lights ”.
Michelle Duff / Stuff
At least 15 hotels in Hastings, like this one, are contracted to provide emergency accommodation.
Behniwal is among 21,415 families on the burgeoning public housing waiting list. In a briefing for Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni released this week, officials said many of those on the waiting list were unlikely to receive a tavern.
While emergency and transitional housing was established as an interim measure to house the homeless, the average motel stay is now around 14 weeks. Residential leasing law does not apply, so families can be evicted at any time or asked to abide by restrictive and arbitrary rules without recourse.
Stuff
Shelley Behniwal with her children Arjan, 1, Jazmeen, 3, Ashar, 6, Ashani, 16 and Ashanika, 14. “Now I feel like we are falling into oblivion.”
There are three repurposed CSR barracks that currently house the Hastings homeless and at least 15 hotels.
The Behniwals complex is managed by the non-profit social service provider iwi Te Taiwhenua or Heretaunga. He referred to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) questions about what would happen to the families living in RSE’s accommodation and how they would be helped to enter their homes.
MSD referred the questions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) saying that it had the contract with Te Taiwhenua. HUD said it was the role of contracted social service providers, of which Te Taiwhenua is one, to support people in other accommodations.
Community Law Aotearoa Executive Director Sue Moroney said her organization viewed this as a typical response to the “bureaucratic mess” that allowed government departments to delegate responsibilities.
He was pushing for both MSD and HUD to regulate providers and protect those most in need. “Frankly, I find it shocking that any government department does this with our most vulnerable. It’s so easy to play musical chairs on the subject, ”Moroney said.
“Millions of taxpayer dollars are currently being used to finance homes for which there are absolutely no standards. That should not be allowed to continue.
“Not only this, but emergency housing providers freely take a lot of money to provide emergency housing in the quiet times and then in the holiday season they refuse to bring people. This could be resolved with a standard contract. “
In a statement, a HUD spokesperson said it was beginning to work on a code of practice in consultation with emergency and transitional housing providers. Transitional housing providers had to be accredited before being hired, which was reassessed every two years.
STEPHEN FORBES / Stuff
Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit policy analyst Ronji Tanielu says we should expect to see more visible homelessness this summer.
Tanielu said the Salvation Army had consistently raised issues about the quality of housing providers. He described housing complexes like motels as a “tinderbox.”
“You are bringing together very complex people with great needs. It is not some kind of rosy “towels are changed every morning”. This is a basic band-aid solution that doesn’t address some of the core issues families face, especially those waiting for a tavern.
“You are not talking about a room prepared for a mother with four children. It covers your head, it is far from the rain, but it is not a house. People live away from normal support, school, church and cultural connections, and next to domestic violence, gangs and people who are released from prison ”.
He predicted an increase in visible homeless people as nights got warmer. And there was only one real solution to that, he said. “Build more houses.”
