Hard News by Russell Brown

This is a really good article.

One of our peer support workers, even people who are homeless, went ‘that won’t work, you can’t just put addled people into housing and expect them to do well’. But it does.”

It's really telling that we are even in this place. As if the alternative is somehow better, that they continue living on the street, where of course addled people do so much better. That even people working in the program found it hard to believe it could work ... ?

As if the alternative is somehow better, that they continue living on the street, where of course addled people do so much better.

Yeah. I had a rather difficult conversation with a friend who used to live at Greys Ave yesterday, who was outraged that people had died on the ground floor. I did try to explain that these were tenants who would otherwise have no home at all.

In truth, some of them would have fared better in a 24-7 supported environment. But until Mission Homeground opens, that environment doesn't exist.

Some homeless guy died in some bushes near my house that I had often passed and thought would be a good place for homeless people to camp without being seen by passers by. Turns out to not really be that good at 5 degrees in the rain without a tent or sleeping bag or food. It was literally a place to go and quietly die. This is not the NZ I want to live in.

Excellent interview - very thought provoking. Those that staff these programmes must be amazing individuals - to work with people with complex needs on a one-to-one basis, without judgement and with this type of patience and creativity must be a really rare quality.