Trust manager: It’s an issue for all of us

• Published date: 03 November 2021

Lammas is the general manager of Whatever It Takes Trust, which provides a range of community support services, particularly focused on mental health and addiction issues.

During the first lockdown in 2020, the trust was approached by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to help it put the homeless into motels.

As a result, the region’s ‘Homeless Network’ was created.

Comprising of groups like Civil Defence, Napier City Council, Hastings District Council, Eastern District Police and the Ministry for Social Development, Lammas found they were suddenly housing a broad spectrum of people.

“We had the people that were couchsurfing, living with whanau in the backroom, in the garage; people living in their cars; the fisherman who doesn’t need a fixed abode but stays with people when he’s back in.

“Then there were the people who had already been through emergency transitional housing and it’s fallen over. And they’re back in the churn.

“Then we have the chronic homeless — anyone who’s been homeless for more than 12 months.”

While getting people into accommodation meant they had a roof over their head, she acknowledged it was not always easy and involved its own restrictions. “If you’re in emergency or transitional housing, you’re homeless. It’s a holding pattern.”

Lammas said she knew of some who still chose to sleep in their car because they wouldn’t be able to have a pet in the motel.

The Hawke’s Bay Today series No Fixed Abode has highlighted the challenge a lack of an address can pose, particularly in accessing healthcare services.

Analysing coroners’ reports as part of a University of Waikato study last year, Dr Sandrine Charvin-Fabre found the life expectancy for the homeless was “dramatically less” due to health inequalities.

Although the mortality rate varies between studies, homeless people typically die 15 to 30 years younger than their housed counterparts.

Similarly, Hastings midwife Jean Te Huia says pregnant women without a fixed abode struggle to access antenatal care until after their first trimester. The women she’s seen are struggling to get GPs because of a shortage of them in the region. Lammas says ‘hassle-free clinics’ for the homeless were designed to help overcome these barriers.

The community also...