Wellington council to spend $460,000 on coordination service to support rough sleepers
Wellington councillors have voted to spend $460,000 setting up a homelessness coordination service.
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Wellington City Council has agreed to spend nearly half a million dollars on a "homelessness coordination service" to support people who are sleeping rough.
As councillors considered officers' proposal for the $460,000 service at Thursday's social, cultural and economic committee meeting, City Missioner Murray Edridge noted the rain pelting the windows.
"For most of us that makes very little difference in our lives, but if you're doing it tough in the city it changes everything."
His organisation alongside Downtown Community Ministry, He Herenga Kura and others, put great effort into supporting those people, he said.
"Despite that, we know that we're not getting it right all the time, and we're not picking up everybody who needs to be picked up."
The new service aimed to change that, he said.
Council officers said the capital's support system for chronically homeless people was "fragmented and under considerable strain".
"Agencies and frontline workers are often left to operate in siloes, with limited capacity to align their work, share insights, or escalate challenges effectively," the meeting's agenda document said.
"This results in individuals and whānau falling through the cracks, prolonged street homelessness, and growing concern across the community."
The new service would bring together - and fund - three key organisations currently supporting homeless people in the capital: Downtown Community Ministry (DCM), Wellington City Mission, and He Herenga Kura.
It was not a new outreach service, the papers said.
"Rather, it is a dedicated coordination function that strengthens what already works - enhancing collaboration, supporting shared case planning, enabling responsive escalation (including after-hours), and ensuring that lived experience and frontline realities inform how we respond as a city."
The service "attempts to address systemic barriers, and connects existing services around the needs of our city's most vulnerable whānau who are experiencing chronic homelessness and that are rough sleeping in our CBD."
The funding would be split between DCM ($286,666) Wellington City Mission ($146,666) and He Herenga Kura ($26,668).
It would be drawn from the $500,000 annual community safety grant funding provided through the city council's 2024-34 Long-term Plan, and be spent on:
Councillor Nureddin Abdurahman asked how success would be measured, and councillor Ray Chung queried whether the service would be able to provide data to prove its success.
Officers and the agencies' representatives said change would not happen overnight, and the establishment of the service would not mean people vanished from sleeping on the street.
But it would provide a much better picture - including data - of why people were homeless, what help they needed, and what gaps existed, said DCM's Natalia Cleland.
That would also help with things like advocating for more support with central government, she said.
Mayor Tory Whanau urged councillors to have compassion and support the proposal.
"These are our people, these people are part of our whānau, and they suffer from very complex issues that require more than just a roof over their head," she said.
"They need our help."
Councillors voted unanimously for the creation of the new service, which would happen in the coming months.
The funding would continue past the first year if it was deemed successful after "robust evaluation" - subject to funding availability.
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