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September 14, 2023
Age policy creating homeless rangatahi
Adam Gifford
Posted On September 14, 2023
The founder of a south Auckland youth development trust says Oranga Tamariki is throwing young people into homelessness.
Māhera Maihi says Mā Te Huruhuru Trust has established the first kaupapa Māori transitional housing for young homeless.
She says it’s an invisible problem because the data isn’t collected separate to adult homeless, but there could be as many as 33,000 homeless youth, more than a third of them in Tamaki Makaurau.
Many of them have been under the care of Oranga Tamariki but have turned 18, and the agency has a very limited number of transitional places.
“Emergency housing and transitional housing isn’t (counted as) homeless. There is nothing that says Oranga Tamariki currently cannot do that. That’s cause for concern because we are putting young people into homelessness as soon as they turn 18,” Ms Maihi says.
Mā Te Huruhuru has been calling for legislative change, but apart from Marama Davidson it has received little interest from ministers.
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