West Auckland community group continues to help house families amid a homelessness crisis.
The Matangaro family – not their real name – have been trying to make ends meet and are grateful to finally have a place that they can call home.
“We were living in a house that was almost run down you know and we stayed there for like five years. The rent was quite expensive as well after paying the rent we were left with next to nothing,” the father says.
“Thats how desperate we were just to have our own space you know. It was that or that was better than being homeless, which, at one point, we were.”
Struggling to put a roof over their heads the young couple also had something else to worry about.
“When we found out that my partner was pregnant and,you know, we were about to be parents, we made the bold decision that this is not a good space to raise our son.”
They moved into his elderly parents’ three bedroom home where they already had other family members.
It was hardly the ideal situation and it put them on course to connect with Visionwest, in West Auckland a community organisation which provides a wraparound service for thousands of families who are in need of food support, financial mentoring, employment and housing.
The Government’s June ‘Homelessness Insights’ report revealed a sharp increase in people living without shelter, including those sleeping in cars and on the streets. As well as that, more than 100,000 households or about one in 16 experience cramped or overcrowded living conditions.
“It’s a stark reminder actually that there are failures in our system, that there are failures in our health system, in our housing system, in our education system and we can’t be proud of that,” says Judy Matai’a, Director of Housing and Pasefika Development at Visionwest.
“One of the programs we do offer at Visionwest is Housing First. That’s a proven program that deals with homelessness and a lot of that is just recognizing the immediacy of finding safe, stable permanent housing. You get that part of the equation right then you can focus on all the other things.
“And sadly for Auckland we have lots of families that are in that vulnerable state and so, how do you work with the family unit? As much as we have the growing need for individuals who are homeless, we have families that are homeless,” Matai’a added.
Vuiseinafolava Peter Stowers is the Pacific Relationship Manager at Community Housing Aotearoa and he says, “we need more houses.”
“Theres actually a lot of hidden, our people have that shame of coming forward. I think since covid, when people start losing their jobs, that ripple effect I think is still, we’re still picking up the end of that.”
Vuiseinafolava says often a job loss can cause a huge disruption for a family as around 60 to 70 percent of household income goes towards paying for rent or home-ownership payments. If funds dry up homelessness is not far off.
Thankfully that’s not the case for the Matangaro family, who have been helped into a warm new home, thanks to Visionwest.
“It’s a nice feeling to know that we are waking up in your own home and the rents paid you got food in the cupboard and you know there’s food to eat so yeah it’s a very nice feeling.”
