No change in Dunedin homelessness after tent encampment dispersed

The number of homeless in Dunedin has not reduced despite a high profile tent encampment on a central city oval dispersing, advocates say.

A growing group of rough sleepers were living in tents at Kensington Oval earlier this year, with more people living in vans and cars on nearby park land and in surrounding bushes.

Dunedin City Council staff gave an update on homelessness at a meeting on Monday as part of its housing plan, with a report saying the encampment had put the city's homelessness in the spotlight.

"While the visible encampment at the oval has now dispersed, it is anecdotally reported by (non-government organisations), charities and agencies that the number of homeless within our city has not reduced," the report said.

"This is a complex area of work, and there are many factors that impact on a lack of housing resilience or becoming homeless. It involves groups and people from across society including those that are not usually considered at risk of homelessness, such as women and young people."

The council adopted the housing plan in 2022 with aims to look after the community's most vulnerable and find better ways to use land for housing, increase housing quality and bring people together.

Staff had made progress on the 12 actions outlined in its initial plan including identifying any council land that was zoned residential and unused, collaborate with other stakeholders, and training front-line staff to have trauma-informed conversations and use a contact database, the report said.

The real time database was live with plans to use it to better share information between groups and build a better picture of what the homeless community needed.

The council's housing principal policy advisor, Gill Brown, said the top challenges people had already identified included friends and relationships, money services - which could include not having an address so they could claim a benefit - caring for themselves and how they felt.

"Those are all very emotive things that gives us a feel that actually alcohol and drugs is quite a long way down the ... scheme of things and maybe we need to start thinking about how we might bring our community together, how we might offer places for people to do drop ins, how we might advertise some of those drop in centres," she said.

Councillor Mandy Mayhem said she was disappointed that plans to set up a homeless hui was far down the list, but she was pleased that about 30 people had been trained.

"People are very guarded. They're homeless for a reason, there are so many complex things involved and I certainly remember being in a financial situation where bills piling up could mean that homelessness was not very far away," Mayhem said.

The council was now focused on more collaboration, finding ways to improve housing quality and increase housing supply, update a website for housing, and work towards a Functional Zero approach to homelessness.

That included finishing work to guide its response to support homeless and vulnerable communities during extreme weather, natural disasters and social emergencies.

The plan also sought to explore different partnerships and options to build affordable, accessible or social housing.

Councils across the motu including Dunedin are part of a national group to collaborate on homelessness with plans to meet in person alongside a national hui on the issue next year.