A wider social movement to fully address outstanding issues of discrimination and exclusion is essential to end LGBTI homelessness says the openly gay Chair of the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board, Simon Randall. His comments come following the story of a group of flatmates who placed an ad searching for a “non heterosexual” person to share their house with. The flatmates have been criticised by the Human Rights Commission for their ad however they have responded by highlighting that, “An extremely high number of transgender people are homeless, in unstable or unsuitable housing, and regularly face housing discrimination. “We are routinely turned away from flats for being trans,” they say. With organisations such as the homeless support organisation LifeWise and Gender Minorities Aotearoa recognising that trans housing discrimination often leads to homelessness, Randall says while he is not aware of any data that specifically looks at the numbers of LGBTI homeless people in New Zealand, “certainly the information that I have seen from the US suggests that LGBTI people, particularly youth, are homeless at much higher rates than the general population. “I imagine that trend also would be seen here.” Randall has previously participated in Auckland’s The Big Sleepout, an annual event raising awareness of the prevalence of homelessness and funds for LifeWise. He says, “Issues such as homophobia and transphobia, a lack of appropriate support and services that are tailored to people’s unique needs, and people being kicked out of home from families who reject them all play a role here,.” “A lot of homelessness is hidden in New Zealand with people moving from friend to friend or other inadequate arrangements”. The Chair for the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board also supports the approach advocated by Lifewise and others to have a housing first approach to ending homelessness. “This has proven effective overseas where it has been appropriately resourced. It would need to be appropriate and tailored to people’s needs, and also be followed with a wraparound service to address other barriers people might face in participating fully in society. “A wider social movement to fully address outstanding issues of discrimination and exclusion is essential. Implementing the recommendations of the To Be Who I Am/Kia noho au ki toku ano ao Report would be a good start.” He also acknowledges that the move to deliver more and more social housing through Community Housing Providers may mean that people are less likely to feel they will be treated fairly given the religious affiliations of many social sector housing trusts. “There also needs to reforms of the residential tenancies act to give tenants greater certainty in rental accommodation and more protections against discrimination,” he says. “It is estimated at 15,000 people in Auckland are severely housing deprived, and this is estimated to grow to 90,000 by 2031 unless addressed now. A greater proportion of this number is likely to be LGBTI based on overseas research. “The crisis has no quick fixes but Central and Local Government need to work strongly with the social sector to ensure that a greater number and range of housing is available including social housing, affordable housing.” Recognising the barriers LGBTI people face when finding housing, leading to in some cases homelessness, Randall says in order to address the situation, “There is a need for a community wide response, which could include providing emergency housing for LGBTI youth, and housing for older people. “We also need to be pushing to ensure that agencies and organisations which receive funding to provide services are equipped and required to be able to deliver to diverse needs in a non-discriminatory way. “Housing provides essential stability in people’s lives. Not having this undermines the ability for people to live full lives and has a massive toll on the individual.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 30th January 2016 - 5:07pm