Over the last few days, there has been plenty of media chatter in relation to the government’s proposal to pass a law enabling police to forcibly shift street dwellers from Auckland’s CBD. (Refer ‘Move On’ orders penalise those with the least, Scoop 22 Feb 2026.)

While Labour likes to express outrage, neither Labour nor National have given as much as a hint as to a solution they would commit to implementing. National sees street vagrants in much the same way as the Israeli government sees Palestinians; in both cases, they just want the ‘problem people’ to go away.

New Zealand, like most countries, has a long history of vagrancy, and of mean-spirited laws to deal with it. New Zealand, however, in 1938 introduced a universal welfare state; a political contract which gained broad bipartisan support until 1984. Over the 1938 to 1984 period the vagrancy problem was minimal. I remember being shocked at seeing beggars in Ireland in 1976; that was depression-era optics, which I thought had long passed in the developed world.

The most recent time I ventured out of Australasia was in 2019, on a trip to Canada, Scotland, and London. I remember remarking that Vancouver seemed to have fewer homeless people than Auckland. The next day I changed my mind; I discovered that the problem in Vancouver was more on the edge of the CBD, whereas in Auckland it had already become normalised around Queen Street and the city’s main library. I note this point, because the problem cannot be blamed on the Covid19 pandemic, and it was a problem that neither Labour’s Jacinda Ardern nor Phil Goff were willing to prioritise during their terms in office (as Prime Minister, and as Mayor).

(In Scotland, while Aberdeen did have a problem, it was less obvious than in Auckland; and even less obvious in Edinburgh. In London, I stayed in Stepney Green, a social housing area close to Whitechapel, and did not particularly sense a ‘street dweller problem’ there; nor in closer-to-the-City and now-gentrified Spitalfields.)

The current chatter focuses on homelessness, while only noticing in passing that many street occupiers are also beggars; meaning that, at its core, the problem is one of income insecurity.

Hardly anyone has connected the dots between begging and the regression of social security in New Zealand. The universal welfare state has lost its way since 1984. My sense is that many of today’s vagrants are not receiving any social security money; and that that may be in large part because it is too difficult – and humiliating – for them to deal with a Kafkaesque system that calls beneficiaries ‘jobseekers’, and is forever looking for ways to not support vulnerable people into constructive engagement. While the general public would regard vagrants as being unemployed, Statistics New Zealand does not even count them as unemployed. Our governmental systems are oriented around the ‘labour force’, and are largely blind to working-age people ‘not in the labour force’.

It is not my role here to analyse the way that our untweaked version of capitalism creates vagrancy. Rather, it is to note that our vagrants need these three things: an amount of unconditional income, a place better than the street where they can sleep and wash, and something fulfilling – maybe, even, productive – to do.

While, for the rest of this essay I’ll focus on the former, I’ll just mention the latter briefly. Minimum wage laws put most of these people out of the reach of the formal labour market. That leaves them two choices for something societally connected to do; voluntary work, or petit-entrepreneurship (aka non-criminal hustling). (Two other options, both disconnected from mainstream society, are: ‘hanging out’ in ways that intimidate, or participating in underworld crime.)

A Very Basic Universal Income (VBUI)

As our income-tax scale stands at present, a Very Basic Universal Income of $150 – payable to every tax-resident aged over 18 – could be mostly funded by abandoning the 10.5% and 17.5% tax rates. All annual personal income below $78,100 would be subject to a 30% tax rate.

Non-beneficiaries earning less than $53,500 would gain, because their VBUI would be more than their extra tax. (For these people in fulltime work, the gain would be small; $12 per week for a minimum wage worker working 40 hours per week; $16 per week gain for a minimum wage worker working 37½ hours per week.)

In technical economists’ language, the VBUI would be called a ‘refundable tax credit’, or maybe a ‘demogrant’.

People earning more than $53,500 per year – and beneficiaries – would have an unchanged net income situation. (For beneficiaries, the first $150 of their benefits would become universal; an accounting change only, from a costing point-of-view.)

People on benefits would have the first $150 per week of their benefit recategorised. People losing their jobs would continue to receive their VBUI, unconditionally. People not in the labour force would have their VBUI payments made directly, and there would be an opt-out mechanism; not an opt-in.

The biggest gains come to non-beneficiaries aged over 18 defined in the official statistics as either ‘underemployed’, ‘part-time’, or ‘not in the labour force’. The most important gains are that the $150pw VBUI constitutes an unconditional safety-bridge for those in danger of becoming redundant, or of having their hours reduced to part-time; and that it thus acts as an ‘automatic stabiliser’, meaning that people who lose their incomes can still maintain some of their usual spending.

The VBUI also means that people who gain work, or who gain extra work, still get to keep all of their Very Basic Universal Income. There is no income or poverty trap (as there is now), whereby gains in income from a new source lead to reductions in income from existing sources.

And it also substantially reduces the cost of administering social security, if people who lose their jobs automatically retain a very basic income to help tide them over losses in market income. The only information needed about non-beneficiaries in New Zealand would be their date and place of birth, their bank account number, and their immigration status. People receiving no publicly-sourced income other than a VBUI would at no stage be required to provide the authorities with any further information; they would pay tax at the going rate to the IRD based on market income connected to their IRD number.

Very Basic Universal Income is an ‘opt-out’ mechanism, which means that everyone receives it unless they have specifically asked to not receive it. And, even then, opt-outs should be managed as ‘temporary’. (All people legally allowed to earn income in New Zealand would have at least an IRD or NHI [Health NZ] number; ‘bank accounts’ at Kiwibank could be opened by Inland Revenue or Health New Zealand for people without other known access to banking facilities.)

In addition to reduced administration costs, there are several other ways that a miserly government could recoup its not-very-onerous outlays on VBUI. The two most obvious ways would be to raise the company tax rate from 28% to 30%, and to reduce the income threshold for the 39% tax down from $180,000 per year. A centre-right government which has done all these things – all very much consistent with centre-right philosophy – might then aspire to removing the 33% tax rate. That would leave a two-step tax scale: 30% and 39%.

We note that the introduction of a VBUI would, in itself, mean only one change to the existing benefit structure. That one change would be the accounting formality to categorise the first $150 per week of a benefit as a universal income, as a ‘duty-of-care’ income integrated into both the tax system and the benefit system.

A VBUI is not generous, and it’s not a Universal Basic Income (UBI). But it does act as an income that acknowledges both human rights and economic efficiency. Once the mechanism and mindset are in place – noting that the ‘mindset’ issue is analogous with that associated with the introduction of proportional-representation voting in New Zealand in the 1990s – then it becomes comparatively easy to tweak the numbers. In time, the VBUI might become a BUI, a Basic Universal Income; more like $250pw than $150pw. We need to start at a low amount, to sooth the apprehensions of the professional naysayers; those unimaginative people too ready to block social and economic progress.

A Teenage Basic Universal Income (TBUI) for adolescents

Late in 1979, Robert Muldoon raised the universal family benefit to $6 per week – a benefit (which commenced in 1946) payable on behalf of all children without any means testing. If we adjust that $6 by the CPI changes we get an equivalent of $42 today. Or if we adjust by GDP per capita – a better measure than the CPI, a measure which allows for economic growth – that $6 in late 1979 becomes $70 today.

My proposal is to pay a TBUI of either $42 or $70, to all New Zealanders aged from 14 to 17. For many of these teenage recipients, the amount would be paid directly to the recipient, and deducted from the Family Tax Credit payment presently paid to their caregivers.

I have calculated that recipients of a $42 (or even $45) TBUI should face a special flat tax rate of no more than 20% of their market income. And recipients of a $70 TBUI should face a special flat tax rate of no more than 23% of their market income. I favour fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds – all still legally at school – to receive the $42; and sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to receive the $70 and pay a bit more tax.

The TBUI acknowledges that a significant minority of New Zealand’s vagrant population is in the 14 to under-18 age range. They would receive payments in the same way as older vagrants; if necessary, through an account opened for them by the IRD or Health NZ.

Call it ‘pocket money’, if you like. All New Zealand residents would receive this from when they turn 14, unless they opt-out. Fourteen is the age, in New Zealand, when children may be legally left-alone, unsupervised. Thus, it is the first age to directly signal that a young person should have a degree of independence, of economic autonomy.

Finally

All of the payments I have suggested are very basic and somewhat stingy. What matters is that they are unconditional, and confer a sense of citizenship onto our most vulnerable adults and semi-adults. There are no poverty traps; no impediments to recipients from ‘bettering themselves’, from being aspirational. Universal Incomes are not withheld when persons’ circumstances improve.

I personally would prefer less parsimonious payments; deficit-funded payments which would give an underdone economy a necessary bit of stimulus, realising that the arising increase in collective prosperity itself recoups such fiscal deficits. (The 1938 introduction of Universal Superannuation and other reforms turned out to have a fiscal cost significantly less than the projected costs. Refer Elizabeth Hanson’s 1980 book: The Politics of Social Security…) I note that we live in austere times; without really knowing the reason for these fiscal blindspots. Nevertheless, I am suggesting that, even with Scrooge in charge, we can do much better than we do today.

Further, with these universal incomes in place, everyone will know that everyone else will know that all of our vagrant population is in receipt of at least some income. (Refer Steven Pinker’s 2025 book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…) As it is, some of the beggars on the streets may be receiving substantial benefits, while others are receiving absolutely nothing; today we, in the public, are unable to tell any individual vagrant’s actual level of need.

There are solutions to these ‘all-rhetoric no-solution’ difficulties. It just takes the political will to see past our blindspots. Some form of rights-based universal income guarantee is a necessary but not a sufficient solution to the compounding vagrancy problem; and to other problems too, especially those problems affecting young people. (Note: Youth facing more psychological distress…, RNZ, 25 Feb 2026.)

Note on the Politics of Achievement

When Michael Joseph Savage in 1938 proposed (and then legislated for) a universal welfare state – with special emphasis on an initially very basic Universal Superannuation – he converted what could have been a political losing hand in that election year into New Zealand’s greatest ever electoral victory. There were many on the left and on the right of Savage’s parliamentary caucus – political people without political nous – who seemed to be eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Fortuitously, Savage was not one of them. By not being one of them, by not losing courage, he became the New Zealander of the twentieth century. Savage didn’t solve every problem. But he did make a difference, for the better; and was loved for that. While a modest man himself, his political leadership for New Zealand was far from austere.

Do our current lot of politicians even want to win in November? My advice to both National and Labour is to pursue the politics of success, and not the politics of nihilism.

(In this regard we might note that the Labour Opposition in 1931 suffered an ignominious election defeat, despite the appalling economic catastrophe which was then taking place. Labour went on to win in 1935, by promising a universal welfare state. It came close to electoral embarrassment in 1938; it came close to failing to deliver on its 1935 promise.)

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Living in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby without a house or a source of income is a death sentence, says Raymond Green.

He highlights the struggles of sleeping in the streets, begging for his daily bread and wandering around aimlessly — living a life of quiet desperation.

His advice: Don’t ever borrow money from someone if you don’t have the means to repay them.

According to Raymond Green, he learnt this lesson the hard way when he had to sell off everything under his name to repay his debt.

“I have absolutely nothing. No house, no wife, no money, no valuables and certainly no food in my stomach as we speak,” he told the PNG Post-Courier.

“My struggles cannot be explained by words.

“Every day I have to keep on moving to survive, begging for scraps of food here and there.

Harassment and bullying
“I enjoy the cold nights, but I just wish it could be more peaceful, as there are always people out there who find happiness in harassing and bullying me,” he says.

“I live in pain, agony and desperation. My past haunts me, and my regrets fill me with sorrow.

“Sometimes I wish life could give me a fresh start, but it sadly does not work that way.”

Green doesn’t mince his words when he expresses his daily struggles of being “homeless” and “poor”.

Something he explains that he could have avoided if he had taken the right path when he was younger.

“My daily living is a constant struggle for survival, and I sometimes feel like I am dead inside,” he says.

‘Ultimately have nothing’
“It’s true, being homeless is practically like being dead because you ultimately have nothing.

“All I own can be seen inside my small bag. Everything I had has been either stolen, lost or destroyed somewhere or somehow.”

He says he is waiting for a one off-payment from a certain office, by which he can then use the money for his retirement.

He says there is a high chance he may never receive this payment.

Raymond Green is one of the many who live under extreme poverty conditions, while continuously fighting to survive in Port Moresby.

Theophiles Singh is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Opposition National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis was among three political leaders who made a surprising commitment at a debate last night to build 1000 state houses in Auckland each year.

Labour Party leader and caretaker prime minister Chris Hipkins and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson also agreed to do so, with resounding “yes” responses to the direct question from co-convenors Sister Margaret Martin of the Sisters of Mercy Wiri and Nik Naidu of the Whānau Community Centre and Hub.

All three political leaders also pledged to have quarterly consultations with a new community alliance formed to address Auckland’s housing and homeless crisis and other social issues.

The “non-political partisan” public rally at the Lesieli Tonga Auditorium in Favona — which included more than 500 attendees representing 45 community and social issues groups — was hosted by the new alliance Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga.

Filipina lawyer and co-chair of the meeting Nina Santos, of the YWCA, declared: “If we don’t have a seat at the table, it’s because we’re on the menu.”

Later, in an interview with RNZ Morning Report today, Santos said: “It was so great to see [the launch of Te Ohu] after four years in the making”.

‘People power’
“It was so good to see our allies, our villages and our communities — our 45 organisations — show up last night to demonstrate people power

“Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga is a broad-based alliance, the first of its kind in Tāmaki Makauarau. The members include Māori groups, women’s groups, unions and faith-based organisations.

“They have all came together to address issues that the city is facing — housing is a basic human right.”

She chaired the evening with Father Henry Rogo from Fiji, of the Diocese of Polynesia in NZ.

Speakers telling heart-rending stories included Dinah Timu, of E Tū union, about “decent work”, and Tayyaba Khan, Darwit Arshak and Eugene Velasco, who relating their experiences as migrants, former refugees and asylum seekers.

The crowd was also treated to performances by Burundian drummers, Colombian dancers and Te Whānau O Pātiki Kapahaka at Te Kura O Pātiki Rosebank School, all members of the new Te Ohu collective.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, journalist Simon Wilson reported:

“Hipkins told the crowd of about 500 . . . that he grew up in a state house built by the Labour government in the 1950s. ‘And I’m very proud that we are building more state houses today than at any time since the 1950s,’ he said.

“’Labour has exceeded the 1000 commitment. We’ve built 12,000 social house units since 2017, and 7000 of them have been in Tāmaki Makaurau. But there is more work to be done.’

“He reminded the audience that the last National government had sold state houses, not built them.

“Davidson said that housing was ‘a human right and a core public good’. The Greens’ commitment was greater than that of the other parties: it wanted to build 35,000 more public houses in the next five years, and resource the construction sector and the government’s state housing provider Kāinga Ora to get it done.

“’We will also put a cap on rent increases and introduce a minimum income guarantee, to lift people out of poverty.’

“Willis told the audience there were 2468 people on the state house waiting list in Auckland when Labour took office in 2017, and now there are 8175.

“’Here’s the thing. If you don’t like the result you’re getting, you don’t keep doing the same thing. We don’t think social housing should just be provided by Kāinga Ora. We want the Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity and other community housing providers to be much more involved.’

“Members of that sector were at the meeting and one confirmed the community housing sector is already building a substantial proportion of new social housing.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fears are rife in Hawai’i of predatory land buying after the recent wildfires have left many locals homeless and in dire financial straits.

The wildfires incinerated the town of Lāhainā, destroying 2200 homes and businesses and leaving hundreds unaccounted for. At least 114 people are confirmed dead.

The disaster has shed light on Hawai’i’s housing crisis which has prompted many to leave the state for the US mainland.

According to Hawai’i’s Senate Housing Committee, an average of 14,000 Hawai’ians leave the state every year. The state also has one of the highest homeless rates in the country — in 2022, close to 6000 people experienced homelessness.

Hawai’i — a state notorious for high mortgage rates and rent — was already in a housing crisis before the disaster occurred. In fact, it was only last month that Hawai’i’s Governor Josh Green declared a housing emergency — announcing plans to build 50,000 homes before 2025.

“Homeowners have been reached out to by developers and realtors offering to buy their land…and this is disgusting and we just want to let people around the world to know that Lahaina is not for sale,” Maui community leader Tiare Lawrence told US media.

Lawrence accused out-of-state developers of taking advantage of the disaster, by buying up multi-generational lands from residents forced into financial desperation by the wildfires.

Lāhainā evacuee John Crewe told RNZ Pacific local inter-generational property owners were already struggling to keep up with costs before the wildfires destroyed their homes.

“People feel that they will be forced to sell out because they’re desperate, and then that will mean there is no place for them to return to,” said Crewe.

“Certain people may try to take advantage of the disaster to gain more real estate because it’s a vacation destination, people like to buy properties for vacation and that drives up the cost of everything.

“This is something that should have been addressed long ago.”

In response to the public concerns, Hawai’i’s Governor Josh Green announced he had organised attorneys to assist local landowners.

“I’ve asked my attorney to watch out for predatory practices,” Green said last week.

“We’ll also be raising incredible amount of resources to protect us financially so that none of that land falls into anyone else’s hands,” he added.

The governor even suggested the state government would look to acquire the land in devastated parts of Maui.

That comment caused a social media backlash from critics who accuse the administration of protecting the interests of lucrative hotels and tourism developers — blamed by many for making the Hawai’i’s property markets so expensive.

“Some people have taken out of context a comment I made about purchasing land — that is to protect it, to protect if for local people so that it is not stolen by people on the mainland,” said Green.

“This is not about the government getting land, this is the people’s land and the people will decide what to do with Lāhainā.”

But many remain doubtful. In the days following the disaster, thousands of Lāhainā evacuees were forced to live in gymnasiums, churches, community shelters and their cars while Maui’s many hotels and resorts remained open to tourists.

Governor Green did announce that he had arranged with hotels for more than 500 rooms to be made available for evacuees to use.

Lāhainā evacuee and Native Hawai’ian Kanani Higbee told RNZ Pacific she had no choice but to leave Hawai’i for another state where the costs of living were cheaper.

John Crewe said he prayed the community which had existed for generations in Hawaii’s historical city would remain intact.

“People might have the tendency to leave the island and go somewhere else. We should build it so that people will come back and make Lāhainā a vibrant society and not just a tourist destination,” he said.

According to Hawai’i’s Senate Housing Committee, one resident emigrates from Hawai’i every 36 minutes.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Papua New Guinean family who have been renting a property from the National Housing Corporation for the past 46 years have been served with a 24-hour eviction notice by a different owner who had obtained an eviction notice from the Port Moresby District Court.

Yasling Akianang is a former public servant who has been a tenant of the NHC since 1977, occupying the three-bedroom unit in Tamaku Crescent, Gerehu Stage 1.

Akianang said yesterday he was “sad” that he and his family had been given an eviction notice to move out.

He said he had always maintained his rental payments and had called it home for more than four decades.

“I moved into the house in 1977. I have always maintained my direct fortnight deduction rental payment since then.

“No one told me I had any outstanding debts or anything. As far as I know I don’t have any debt,” he said.

“We went to court and because I do not have a title because NHC is the legal title owner I was not able to say anything.”

Eviction notice
The eviction notice was signed by two people noted as joint owners or landlords.

The notice stated, “…hereby serve you a copy of the eviction court order granted by the POM District Court on Wednesday 01st of March 2023.

“Please be advised you are given 24 hours to vacate the property.

“Note that we have also requested police assistance in this matter. Should you fail to comply, police will immediately carry out the eviction exercise forthwith. Your 24 hour notice deadline is at 5 pm 28 March, 2023.”

Today, three generations of the Akianang family occupy the three bedroom unit.

“I have my three children living with me and my grandchildren and my relatives living here too. Where are we going to go, it is my home,” said an emotional Akianang.

The PNG Post-Courier has asked the National Housing Corporation for comment.

Claudia Tally is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Long-time residents in a street in Māngere, Auckland, say they never imagined that one day they would have to row their way out of their street to safety.

One resident, Mesalina, said they were left in the dark when the power failed and the situation hit home when she saw her neighbour sailing past on a boat.

“The lights went off around ten o’clock night time,” she said.

“I opened the window and said, ‘can you help?’ — I didn’t believe that the water had come inside.”

A month on since the Auckland anniversary weekend floods, Mesalina and her daughter Nancy are now staying at a motel, but Nancy said there is “no place like home”.

“She’s just really bugging me about really wanting to go back home,” Mesalina said.

“She’s kind of homesick; we just don’t like the motel because it’s something new.”

Te Ararata Creek overflowed
On that Friday night, the heavy rainfall caused Te Ararata Creek to overflow, seeping into the surrounding homes around Bede Place and submerging vehicles that lined the street.

Samoan community leader Paul Mark lives next door, but his house has been yellow stickered and flood-damaged items are strewn around the property.

Mark is staying with his sister in the nearby suburb of Manurewa but said the floods had uprooted his life.

“We’re trying to keep busy, like going back to work but we’ve got nowhere to go for home,” he said.

“We’re all scattered around, my parents are at a motel room and the kids have had to change schools.”

He said securing a new home was challenging as he had his parents’ needs to consider.

“We’re trying to find a place that’s accessible, that has a ramp and a walk-in shower for my mum who is a wheelchair user.”

House now a shell
Just minutes away is Caravelle Close, where Louisa Opetaia lived, but she said her house had become a shell.

Salvageable belongings are piled in the middle of each room but the bottom half of the walls have been taken out and the home is uninhabitable.

Louisa is staying at emergency accommodation in the city but said with meals not included, it’s becoming stressful.

“I don’t want to appear ungrateful but it’s just hard and there are families living in this hotel with us who have kids. They’re stuck in the city where there aren’t many places to eat except for fast food outlets and they can’t cook for their kids.”

While much of the country’s attention has turned to cyclone recovery efforts, the affected residents of Māngere say they’re still suffering.

“So there’s all these other kinds of struggles you know that are still continuing, even though it’s a month later — I mean the ground has dried up but the struggles that we’re going through still continue,” Louisa said.

Four weeks on from the flash flood that tore through their streets and turned their lives upside down, the residents of Bede Place and Caravelle Close are left wondering what the future holds for them.

Despite staying in warm and safe places for the time being, they know it’s not a long-term solution and that it won’t be a quick or easy mission rebuilding their lives.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A fortnight after the floods in Tāmaki Makaurau and as Aotearoa New Zealand braces for Cyclone Gabriel the reality is setting in for many.

Mother of four Kataraina Toka’s Mount Roskill home is yellow-stickered after being damaged by flooding on January 27.

For now, she is living in a two-bedroom hotel room in Onehunga.

“We’re getting there. It’s hard, it sucks you know being cooped up in somewhere so small with four kids. But better than not having a roof over our heads at all I suppose.”

Toka is looking for a new rental home but like many others is struggling.

“If you think it was bad before, it’s worse now. It’s hard, especially when you know you’ve lost all your ID because somebody dropped their phone in the water or we’ve got no car to get around so it’s just making it to where we can.

“But we’re just grateful for the support that we’ve got.”

Displaced whānau
Māori health provider Waipareira Trust has been helping many whānau in West Tāmaki who have been displaced.

Management lead Jole Thomson said one family in particular stood out.

“Their house was one of the first ones to be red stickered — it was destroyed. Kuia, kaumātua, and they’ve got care and custody over their mokopuna who has special needs and house concerns.

“They’re getting kicked out, basically, of their emergency accommodation.”

Other whānau stayed at schools such as Mount Roskill’s Wesley Primary School which was turned into an evacuation centre when the floods hit.

But some tamariki haven’t been able to return to kura.

Wesley School principal Lou Reddy has noticed the absence of some of his students.

High-risk situation
“We’ve got six that we know are in that high-risk situation where they lost their car, lost their home, are in a temporary housing situation and we haven’t been able to get them here.

“The others, there’s 10 that we haven’t been able to get a hold of at all.”

Thomson said that was a common situation, with some whānau no longer having the resources they need.

“We’re working with a number of whānau, helping them pay for things like school uniforms and a lot of that we’re supporting, they don’t want help. I was watching people trying to dry school shoes so the kids could wear them to school.

“But they’d been destroyed, they had been in raw sewage.”

The Ark Project in Mt Roskill, which works to assist vulnerable families, was a massive part of the evacuation effort and organisers estimate it helped more than 5000 people with kai parcels.

Barely anything left
Co-ordinator Peter Leilua said each day they started off with plenty of supplies but by the end there was barely anything left.

The team did not have enough resources to keep providing for whānau, he said.

“That’s our biggest push to the government, Ark needs a lot of that support, because in our community and Wesley, Puketāpapa, Mount Roskill, we got hit the most.

Many families were being placed temporary accommodation some distance from their community.

“It’s not just around the corner. They’re placing them at Greenlane, Onehunga, some are out South or East and that’s just too far for them to travel,” Leilua said.

Damage from the flooding has extended beyond financial and material loss.

Thomson said whānau have had to throw away taonga or family treasures.

“The photo albums, the whānau heirlooms, the korowai that have been handed down for generations just absolutely destroyed and that’s heartbreaking for whānau.

“Ashes, you know whānau not knowing how to manage those sorts of things, the remains of their loved ones,” Thomson said.

While whānau such Kataraina Toka’s continue to try to rebuild, many know they’ve got a long journey ahead.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Scores of homes near the Vanuatu capital Port Vila which were deemed illegal dwellings have been destroyed following a court-ordered eviction.

Residents have told media they burned down their own homes rather than allow the police to do so.

The sheriff of the court, who was with the police to enforce the eviction order, said that more than 400 people were forced to move from the area, about 10 minutes drive from Port Vila, because they were illegally squatting.

The Sheriff said they were ordered by the court to vacate the area in May 2021 but they did not follow the order, and therefore police had to use two 5-tonne loaders to destroy the homes and fruit trees.

A mother said she did not want to see her home destroyed by the heavy machines so she burnt it down.

They also destroyed their church house for the same reason, she said.

Long-standing relationship turned on its head
Another squatter, Mary Maung, told media she was the first to settle in the land after she was given permission from the paramount chief of Mele, Chief Momo Masai.

She gave food to Chief Masai each year for allowing her to live on his land, she said.

Maung said the relationship changed under the new chief, Simeon Poilapa.

She said she and three other mothers had already deposited 100,000 vatu (NZ$1400) to buy the land where she built her home to Dataka Holding Ltd, which is owned by Chief Poilapa.

The Vanuatu Lands Department said the area was already subdivided but the squatters settled there illegally.

Some of the displaced residents have moved in with relatives in Mele, Teouma, Erakor and other parts of Efate.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua’s Guinea’s National Court has issued an interim restraining order stopping the planned eviction of thousands of Morata settlers on portion 2733 in the capital of Port Moresby.

MSaka Lawyers, engaged by National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parkop, went to court last Friday in light of the looming eviction by First Estate Limited, a company owned by a local individual and his Chinese business partner.

Governor Parkop, a former human rights lawyer before entering politics, said the interim orders should give the settlers “some comfort”.

Clarifying his government’s stance, he reiterated that people claiming title to land and their investment partners should provide alternative solutions to the thousands of affected families who are made homeless due to eviction.

He called on title holders and their investor partners to have talks with him on how this humanitarian crisis could be addressed.

“Our people cannot be left homeless for corporate greed or just for the benefit of one title holder,” he said.

More proactive action
“Lands Department and National Land Board should ensure too that they don’t award title to individuals over land which already has thousands of people in occupation,” said Governor Parkop.

Governor Parkop has also directed the Physical Planning Division and Regulatory Department of NCDC to be more proactive in stopping illegal occupation and settlement of both state and customary land in the city.

He made the call yesterday during the first Physical Planning Board Meeting for NCD for 2022.

“Many of these issues could have been avoided had NCDC and Department of Lands cooperated to prevent or stop all illegal occupation and settlements of state and customary land in the city,” he said.

First Estate Limited will be moving a motion on NCDC standing and abuse of court process while NCDC will be moving a motion on the legality of the UDL.

Justice Kariko ordered that:

1. The matter is adjourned to 2 Feb 2022 for hearing of the Plaintiff’s Notice of Motion (NOM) filed on 10/04/21 and the First Defendant’s NOM filed on 02/07/21;
2. Parties shall file and serve any further affidavits for the hearing by Monday 31/01/22;
3. Parties should settle and hand up to the court on the return date a chronology of all related litigation in all courts in relation to the dispute in this proceeding;
4. The hearing of the motions shall not be further adjourned except for good reasons; and
5. Until the return date, the First Defendant, its servants and agents including members of the police force are restrained from entering into the subject land and carry out steps to evict the residents on the land formerly known as Portion 2733, Morata, NCD.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Eva Corlett of RNZ

As more cases of Covid-19 arise, New Zealanders are being cautioned to work from home or stay home if sick – but what if you don’t have a home?

Agencies working with New Zealand’s homeless community worry that people living on the street will be left behind, if there is a community outbreak of Covid-19.

Wellington-based rough sleeper Rueben has been living on the streets on and off for five years.

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He currently sleeps at a school overnight but said if there is a community outbreak, there are not many options for self-isolation.

Rueben said word is getting out on the street about the virus but threat of community outbreak is not top of mind.

“We’ve actually got worries of our own, to go through each day. It’s bottom of our priority list.”

While Rueben may not be so worried yet about an outbreak, the Archdeacon of St Peter’s Anglican Church on Willis Street, Stephen King, is.

‘Extremely ill’
“We will have people who are extremely ill, whose place of shelter will be St Peter’s, or the doorways that they sleep in.”

The church, built in 1878, has a long history of helping the homeless community, or as Archdeacon King describes “the least, the last and the lost”.

“We have that discussion about people hunkering down and isolating themselves until the illness passes. For some people there is nowhere and so what happens to them?”

Archdeacon King said rough sleepers already struggle to exercise precautions such as sanitising and social distancing.

And he adds that, even if accommodation was made available for self-isolation, continuing to care for people in that situation is a problem.

“That works fine for us if we have a partner or a parent or a child who can help us do that and recover. For those that don’t have that, where does that help come from?”

He said it will not come from hospitals, because they will be at capacity.

Equip, train volunteers
Archdeacon King said government agencies need to equip and train volunteers to continue services, if there is a lock-down period.

Plans are brewing, he said, but he is concerned about how it will play out.

“There are so many things being planned for at the moment as we head further into this crisis, that I just don’t want to see that the most vulnerable miss out on the plan.”

Up in central Auckland, Lifewise’s Peter Shimwell said they are giving their street whānau phones and sim cards to make sure they do not become disconnected.

He said Lifewise is a face-to-face service, so there is concern over how to maintain those connections with people so they are not “left behind and further disconnected”.

“At times like these we need to think outside of the box, in terms of city hotels and whether we have the capacity to unlock some of those.”

Indictment of society
Stephanie McIntyre of DCM – another Wellington faith-based group working with rough sleepers – said it is an indictment on New Zealand’s society that people are even in this position.

“The upshot of that, is that in this environment now, when we really need people to be safely home in their houses, we’ve got a very vulnerable group in our population, who are community members and might literally be left out in the cold.”

All the community organisations hope that empty motels will be opened up for rough sleepers to self-isolate, if need be.

McIntyre said that now is not the time to be worrying about growing motel bills.

She said that DCM is also checking to see if people have phones and can provide one if needed. But she hopes the Ministry of Social Development will ensure people do have a phone and sim card, so that they can be contacted.

Wellington City Council’s Manda Grubner said the council is concerned about how Covid-19 will affect the homeless community.

“It’s very difficult to maintain hygiene and do the things we are telling everyone to do, such as stay home.”

Food distribution
She said the council is reaching out to agencies working directly with homeless communities, including food distribution organisations, to figure out what support they need.

Grubner said the council has implemented its emergency welfare response and has had “all hands-on-deck” calling hotels to see who could accommodate people.

Auckland Council’s Christine Olsen said the council is mindful that people rough sleeping often have more health problems than the rest of the public.

She said it is working with agencies closely and considering making toilet and washing facilities available, as well as charging stations to keep phones charged.

Olsen said the council has talked with the City Mission to come up with contingency plans including to ensure the daily meal, which feeds between 300-400 people a day, is still provided.

The Ministry of Social Development is urging anyone sleeping rough to get in touch.

Emergency housing
In a statement, its spokesperson George Van Ooyen said “nobody needs to sleep rough, and every day we provide emergency accommodation for those in need, including those who have been sleeping rough”.

“We currently work with around 400 emergency housing suppliers each day to support over 2600 households with their urgent housing needs.

“We are supporting the Housing and Urban Development Ministry in its leadership of the Homelessness Action Plan.”

The government’s Covid-19 website includes a set of guidelines for homeless shelters to refer to.

Eva Corklett’s is RNZ’s housing reporter. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs)

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Michael Andrew

An Auckland University of Technology graduate is practicing true community journalism by sharing the stories of Auckland’s most marginalised and vulnerable people.

Former AUT journalism student Six is the editor of the K’Road Chronicle, a community newspaper capturing the essence and eccentricities of Auckland’s infamous Karangahape Road which serves as home to so many homeless.

A self-described over-qualified, under-employed journalist, Six knows the road as if it were her home. It was for a time; she spent several years living on the streets.

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She told Pacific Media Watch this experience gave her a unique perspective to write stories about other rough sleepers for the K’Road Chronicle – some of which have been made into a popular video series through a partnership with Stuff.

“It’s about building trust when I speak with them,” she says.

“I sit alongside them. Their story is my story.”

Supportive AUT Staff
While no longer homeless, Six was living on the streets during her time studying at AUT, a difficult period that she says was made easier with the support of the staff on her course.

“There was Greg Treadwell, Helen Sissons. Big respect for David Robie and his wife Del too, if it wasn’t for their support I’m not sure if I would have gotten through,” she says.

“Even the security guards, after I lost my key card and couldn’t afford to pay the $15 or whatever it was for the new one, they knew me and would let me in the building after hours.”

“And they even turned a blind eye when I’d occasionally spend the night on one of the couches.”

Head of AUT’s journalism department and Six’s former lecturer Dr Greg Treadwell says that her homelessness would have made her studies particularly challenging.

“There were rumours that she was sleeping down on the tenth floor, but I never went down to check.”

“So, if that was the level of support through inaction then I’m very happy to have provided that support.”

Social justice journalism
He says that such an experience would have bolstered her journalism with a strong sense of social justice.

“Her heart was always in the homeless community in many ways. And if there’s an advocacy journalism that’s appropriate, then the journalism that advocates for the homeless is fundamentally good journalism.

“If journalism speaks for the voiceless then the homeless have got to be the most voiceless in society.”

After graduating, Six had trouble finding work in the mainstream media, a problem that many journalism graduates are facing.

Her employment troubles forced her down other avenues, and while sitting on K’Road one day realised the wealth of stories that she could find through street locals. After pitching the idea and securing some initial funding from the K Road Business Association, the Chronicle was spawned.

Cult following
Now in its second year, the newspaper has attracted a cult following within the community and beyond.

“I can’t keep up with demand,” Six says. “I’m even getting asked for copies from AUT and the library.”

Other than sharing important stories, the paper is also providing employment for some K’Road locals who get given copies to sell themselves and keep the earnings, something that Dr Treadwell says is another reason why the Chronicle is a valuable asset for the homeless community.

He also says Six’s inability to find work in the mainstream media ultimately proved to be a service to journalism.

“I think it pushed Sister Six in the right direction,” he says.

“I personally think that the orthodoxy of mainstream newsrooms was never going to make her happy, she’s much more of an advocate than that.”

“So what she’s doing now is hugely valuable and helpful for society but also probably at this stage really good for her because she’s experienced the lacking of things in life, of comfort and so on.

“She knows what it’s like.”

Gonzo Journalism
A fan of American journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Six likens the type of work she does to Thompson’s Gonzo journalism, a style in which the writer becomes so involved with the subject and the subject’s world that he or she actually becomes part of the story.

Treadwell agrees.

“She’s the classic gonzo journalist in a lot of ways.

“She’s much more concerned with outcomes than process, much more interested in shining lights on injustice than necessarily following all the petty rules of the bureaucracy.

“Every city needs a sister six.”

The need for Six’s work is perhaps greater than ever. According to the Auckland Council the number of people classified as “homeless” in Auckland is 20,296. The number of people literally living without shelter day to day is 771.

Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie agrees, saying that the K’Road Chronicle came at a critical time.

Paper for the voiceless
“It was an excellent and exciting initiative to start the K’Road Chronicle – not only is homelessness a growing problem in Auckland, but until this publication started the homeless were voiceless as well.”

During her time at AUT, Six filed stories on diversity for the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Scoop project.

Dr Robie says the type of diversity reporting that Six is doing is an example for all journalists.

“Journalists should be supporting the voiceless, marginalised and stigmatised far more than they do. The mainstream media are far too close to power and should be far more challenging.”

“Six and her community should be congratulated for taking up the challenge – journalism that cares.”

Caring is certainly a value, among others that Six employs in her work.

Journalism values
She says that any journalist can write advertorials or sensationalist articles but it takes a special set of values to write stories about those living on the fringes of society.

Resilience, persistence, resourcefulness, pragmatism and positivity are what enables her to get through life and do the work she does.

“A journalist is nothing without values,” she says.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz