‘Sleeping rough is a lifestyle choice here’

Mark Mitchell walked around Rotorua’s shops for TV cameras and said some rough sleepers did it more as a ‘lifestyle choice’. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

Briefly in the news from Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Friday, July 4:

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says people who sleep rough in Rotorua are making ‘a lifestyle choice’ and should be moved away from shopfronts by five new beat cops — ‘for their own safety’. See more in The Lead below the paywall fold and in the podcast above.
A Salvation Army expert on homelessness, who has been to Rotorua to investigate, says there aren’t enough homes and these people, who deserve dignity and Mark Mitchell’s empathy, are not ‘choosing homelessness’. See more in The Sidebar.
A Queenstown landlord has been fined $113,723.56 for illegally housing 22 migrant workers in a five bedroom home, two garages and a shed, where the power-overloaded smoke alarms didn’t work. Number of the day below.
A group of academics, economists and a former PM have published an open letter calling for a halt to the Regulatory Standards Bill. See more in Docs of the Day.
Today’s Must-Read is Max Rashbrooke’s column for The Spinoff: David Seymour’s hypocrisy over drugs and poverty. See more in Picks ‘n’ Mixes below.
Today’s Good News story is courtesy of the Auckland City Mission, which has just opened a new dental clinic in Auckland. RNZ video via Youtube See more in Good news below.

There’s more detail and analysis for paying subscribers below the fold and in the podcast above. If we get over 100 likes I will open it up in full for public reading, listening and sharing.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell held a news conference in Rotorua yesterday with Mayor Tanya Tapsell to celebrate the appointment of five new ‘beat’ cops, who he made clear were there to move along homeless people sleeping in front of shops. He also staged a photo op walk around Rotorua’s shops for TV cameras to show the new absence of homeless people on the streets.

He said police would work with government agencies to find solutions to get rough sleepers off the streets as they were a risk to others and themselves. He then said this:

“I can’t comment for every rough sleeper, but from my own experience many of the rough sleepers have got somewhere to go. It’s more a lifestyle choice for them.” Mark Mitchell in a video via this article by Annabel Reid for NZ Herald.

For more information on the situation on the ground in Rotorua, here’s Ana Ika from the Salvation Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit talking to Radio Rhema’s Andrew Urquhart yesterday:

“When the government came in, they decreased the number of emergency housing places for families. It’s a lot more difficult for those that are seeking emergency housing to get into that housing. So you might see in the media that there’s a celebration in regards to the decline in emergency housing placements.

“But the reality is the government doesn’t know where about a fifth of those emergency housing clients have gone. For us on the front line, we’re seeing an increase in homelessness across the country.

“For Rotorua in particular, lot of the homeless population stay just outside our Amohia Street building. I was just there a couple of weeks ago and they opened the door to welcome me in to the Salvation Army.

“Because of a lot of these policy changes and the difficulties of trying to get into emergency housing, you know we’re seeing a lot of families spill out into the streets, individuals spill out on to the streets, but also families that are living in overcrowded situations and rough sleeping in their cars.

“Homelessness is just a symptom. There are underlying causes there, particularly with these families and individuals that live outside of our center. A lot of times it’s often to do with past trauma, with mental health, with addictions and a myriad of other issues where it’s difficult to be able to provide housing for these individuals, when you go into transitional housing or emergency housing.

“There are requirements they need to abide by, and oftentimes because of the those underlying complexities that are there, it’s difficult for them to maintain that tenancy, whether it’s emergency or transitional housing.” The Salvation Army policy analyst Ana Ika talking on Radio Rhema via Youtube.

I suspect Ana Ika is slightly better informed than the Minister.

$113,723.56 – Queenstown landlord James Truong has been fined $113,723.56 for illegally using his property as a boarding house for 22 tenants. He packed the migrant workers into a five bedroom home, two garages (see pic below) and a shed. 1News