Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Robin Martin
Nelson City Council is putting $100,000 towards helping vulnerable and homeless women in the city.
The grant to the Nelson Women’s Centre will support a new housing navigator role to help women into safe and stable housing so its social worker can respond to other urgent needs.
The centre’s funding and partnership coordinator, Augusta van Wijk, said about 30 percent of its social work caseload had involved housing-related concerns in the past year and that did not include the women who had to be referred elsewhere due to limited capacity.
“We’re using this funding to employ a dedicated housing navigator – a practical, targeted role that will strengthen our ability to support women into safe, stable housing and enable our social worker to respond to other urgent needs,” she said.
“It’s about increasing our capacity, reach and impact at a time when the needs of vulnerable women in our community are growing.”
Women’s homelessness was often hidden with women struggling to access support early enough, van Wijk said.
It would prioritise women who were homeless, living in unsafe environments or who had dependent children living with them in unstable housing.
The grant was from the council’s housing reserve fund, which was established in 2021 following the sale of its community housing portfolio to Kāinga Ora.
About $12 million was held to reinvest in social housing and to support community housing providers in Nelson.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith said the fund had been used to support the development of more than 115 homes.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith. RNZ / Samantha Gee
The council’s work on housing had identified a gap in specialist support for women, some with children, who were homeless or in vulnerable housing, he said.
“There is no single silver bullet for Nelson’s challenges with homelessness and we need multiple interventions,” Smith said.
“I’m hugely encouraged by how much new private-sector, state and community housing we are getting built in Nelson but we also need well-targeted social services such as Housing First and this new Women’s Centre intervention to ensure every Nelsonian has a warm, dry home to live in.”
Nelson City councillor Sarah Kerby said the programme tackled a clear need for many women living in the city without housing security.
“The navigator role will help the centre provide early intervention for women when they need it the most and I would encourage our wāhine to get in contact with them if their housing situation becomes precarious or unsafe. They will find themselves in supportive hands that will help them get closer to finding somewhere safe and healthy to live.”
The remaining housing reserve funds are ring-fenced for housing projects for vulnerable people and will be allocated in the future.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
