Lack of Strategy to #EndYouthHomelessness increases harm / A.J Hendry

Child Poverty Action Group recently released a report highlighting the impacts that our Covid19 response has had on our young people and kids.

Following this report, a courageous young woman by the name of Hannah shared her story on Newshub Nation. She spoke of her experience of homelessness, of living rough on our streets, of how terrified she was as a young woman living this horrific reality. And though she’s no longer on the street, her experience of emergency accommodation isn’t all that better. “I feel terrified”, was her response when asked by the journalist what living in Emergency Accommodation was like.

Think about that for a second. Imagine being a teenager, living alone, on the street, or in a motel, think about being so afraid of the place you live in, that you barricade your door with furniture every night. How are we allowing this in Aotearoa?

Hannah’s story ground’s CPAG’s report, highlighting what we know. The lack of a strategy to end youth homelessness exacerbated it causing greater harm during the Lockdowns.

Since at least 2018, Manaaki Rangatahi – a collective working to end youth homelessness - had been advocating for such a strategy. Our argument? Without a clear strategy to prevent and end youth homelessness, young people will continue to fall through the cracks in the nation’s homelessness response.  Prior to the Lockdown’s that changed all our lives forever, young people had been largely neglected in the nation’s homelessness response thus far, and we had been in conversation with the Government requesting such a strategy be put in place. We were told it wasn’t going to happen. And then Covid hit.

The nation moved mountains to “end homelessness” and to get our rough sleeping whānau off the street.

And as our adult whānau were housed and cared for, we left our most vulnerable, our young people, on our streets.

Instead of being supported and cared for many 16- and 17-year-old young people expierencing homelessness were left to fend for themselves. Due to their age, many of our young people were not able to access the motel’s that had been allocated for Emergency Accommodation over the lockdowns. As a result, some were forced to coach surf in dangerous and unsafe environments, others had to stay in abusive homes with nowhere else to go, still others ended up on our streets, sleeping rough. 

It’s hard to believe we allowed this to happen, but we did. And I often ask myself, how it is that there is more support for an adult expierencing homelessness in Aotearoa, than there is for a young person?

 In Aotearoa we know that over half of people expierencing homelessness are young people between 16-24. We also know that many of our people that go on to be long term, chronic rough sleepers, began their journey to the street when they were young. And yet, we have no strategy in place to prevent and end youth homelessness, and as we saw over the last year, without such a strategy, without our young people’s voice and experience at the table, they continue to be oppressed.

A clear strategy would identify the known pipelines and drivers of youth homelessness and make the necessary policy and legislative changes to close them. It would see the gaps resourced and plans put in place to respond to the needs of our rangatahi.

Following Hannah’s story, Marama Davidson, Green Party Co-Leader and Minister for Homelessness, acknowledged the need for a strategy to be put into place that addressed the unique needs of rangatahi expierencing homelessness. It was an encouraging acknowledgement, and one that has been welcomed by Manaaki Rangatahi and the sector at large.

As acknowledged by Paul Hunt, the Human Rights Commissioner recently, Aotearoa is facing a human rights crisis. He declared that housing is a human right and warned that if we do not start seeing it as such, the consequences for our rangatahi, for our communities, will be dire.

It is a struggle to over emphasis how urgent action on addressing this is. Young people – like Hannah – are suffering, some are even dying. If we do not act now, we will lose yet another generation to the streets.

And yet Covid19 has given us an opportunity. An opportunity to see ourselves. We are not the just, equitable nation many of us want to believe that we are. Child Poverty Action Group’s report highlights this.

 But we can do better. We can rebuild an Aotearoa where the wellbeing of our children is at the very centre. Where all children, all young people, have a warm, dry, safe, place to call home. Where every one of us has enough to eat, and everyone, no matter your age, or background, or ethnicity, is granted the right to housing.

This will take work, sacrifice, a reorientation of our values even. But, it can be done. In fact, for the sake of our kids, for the sake of our future, it must be done.

If you would like to help Manaaki Rangatahi #EndYouthHomelessness in Aotearoa please consider signing and sharing our petition here. You can also support by emailing your concerns to Megan Woods (Minister for Housing and Urban Development), Carmel Sepuloni (Minister for Social Development) and Kelvin Davis (Minister for Children), calling on them to act urgently to #EndYouthHomelessness in Aotearoa.

A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and now a Youth Development Worker and housing advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also a steering group member of Manaaki Rangatahi, a collective working to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.