What is Homelessness?

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"Living situations where people with no other options to acquire safe and secure housing are: without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing accommodation with a household or living in uninhabitable housing.” - Statistics New Zealand 2009

Different forms of homelessness

Without shelter – living on the street, in a shack or in a car.

In temporary accommodation – such as the Night Shelter or a Refuge.

Sharing accommodation – overcrowded houses with family members or sleeping on friends’ couches.

Uninhabitable housing – dilapidated buildings or housing that is uninhabitable due to damp or lack of facilities.

Spiritual Homelessness

Fixing homelessness doesn’t just mean providing people with homes. For many cultures physical homelessness leads to another form of being homeless through cultural disconnection.

What is spiritual homelessness?

In short, spiritual homelessness is the feeling of being out of place in an ancestral homeland. Physical homelessness or otherwise known as “being on the streets” marks the beginning of or worsening of cultural disconnection for the population of homeless Māori.

Homelessness means having no access to whanau or no relation to tribe, spiritual land and development of cultural knowledge. In other words this means that simply providing Māori people who are homeless with a “home,” does not fix the issue! Building four walls around Māori homelessness is only a short term resolution to a larger problem. Providing Māori homeless with temporary housing can even be further isolating, as they are taken away from the only community they had access to in the first place.

How you can encouraging spiritual reconnection!

Anyone can help reconnect the Māori homeless with their culture. Not only does this make government spending on addressing physical homelessness more useful, but helps Māori culture thrive in New Zealand. Often when confronted by a homeless person on the streets, we may give them food, cash or something to keep warm. What we may not do enough of is redirect them to a community they can reconnect with. Maximising the use of urban marae could be a positive way to provide support for Māori who are homeless, and kaupapa Māori services are best able to provide support for those Māori with mental health and addiction issues. The nearest urban marae in Wellington is found at 44 Rhine St, Island Bay.

Cultural Shame

The suffering Māori endure from being homeless is worsened by the cultural alienation homelessness encourages. Māori under intense whakamā (shame and humiliation from feeling homeless at being dislocated from their whanau and hau kāinga (spiritual homeland).

Homeless Māori represent Māori who have been cut off from all whanau ties and land. In Māori culture one can only understand their identity through their cultural knowledge. A loss of identity intensifies the social deprivation Maori feel, this leads mental disorder and increases the likelihood of Māori suicide.

The harsh conditions of homelessness force Māori into desperate situations where they feel they have to do things that cause cultural shame. This connotes substance abuse, crime and usually a slowly deteriorating mental state.

Māori women who are homeless suffer the most severe cases. Māori women who have been the victims of sexual abuse feel humiliated to reconnect with their culture as to not bring shame upon their family.

Māori society is in a constant state of stratification. Socio economic status in modern society causes even Māori or iwi authorities to hesitate when confronted with the challenge of Māori homelessness. Saying that Māori homelessness is an issue that should be fixed solely by Māori organisation is a national tragedy!

What needs to change?

Māori homelessness needs a culturally specific initiative to not only give people adequate housing, but further to use housing as a first step to cultural reconnection or for some, redemption.

Reconnection through language, cultural customs and people is vital in ensuring Māori do not revert back to the streets. Cultural reconnection is not a quick process and may take a lot of time for feelings of shame to disappear for an individual. There are also financial limitations that put time restraints on cultural reconnection. Social services therefore need to be maintained as well as culturally specific to ensure Māori have enough time to get back on their feet socially, financially and culturally.

A culturally specific initiative is financially efficient compared to past homelessness campaigns. Past campaigns in New Zealand have provided short term solutions that only fix a problem for a small period of time. Cultural reconnection ensures Māori can get off the streets, find their identity and reclaim their place in their spiritual land.

Māori Representation

Māori are overrepresented amongst the homeless population in Māori. It’s important to acknowledge statistics that show how big the issue is and it is true that the largest proportion of homeless people in Wellington are Māori. Statistical representation runs the risk of generalising Māori people as the issue itself. False representation does not only leave Māori culturally disconnected, but they become extremely isolated by society, physically and socially.

The current representation of homeless Māori is a birthing ground for ethnocentric tendencies amongst society. It allows the ignorant to make assumptions about Māori culture and the systems that operate within it. A lot of people do not realise that the Māori they see on the streets or imagine in publicised facts are the part of the Māori population who are devoid of culture. If anything, the largely successful population of Māori within New Zealand shows the value of culture in modern society.

Unfortunately assumptions leave the current homeless very vulnerable to abuse. Māori homeless are an easy target for hate crime, whether attacks are driven by racial misconception, emotional outrage substance abuse or even sexual abuse.

Societal Enlightenment

As a public, the worst thing we can do is to allow representation of homeless Māori to cause false assumptions about Māori culture. By learning more about Māori culture we begin to understand that it is close cultural ties that help people prosper.

Our reaction towards homeless Māori should be one of assistance. Encouragement to reconnect with their culture is has been seen as a protective factor towards suicide amongst Māori. Whether using basic Te Reo when interacting with the homeless, showing them where to find culturally specific assistance. This all helps in resolving Māori homelessness, but further reinforces a positive cultural image amongst modern Māori.

Understanding Māori culture and reducing ignorance around the strength it gives is imperative to acknowledge in New Zealand society. Not only does less ignorance about culture begin to put right the situation of homelessness within Wellington. But also is vital to lower racism created by ethnocentric assumption against struggling or minority cultures in New Zealand.

Help You Can Provide

Volunteer

Help support a local community project which is working to make a change.

Goods

Donations of goods such as toiletries, household supplies, and clothing, that you may no longer need would be greatly appreciated.

Lobby

Have your say, engage with your local council over these issues, support community movements that are working to address these issues within our community.

Donation

A monetary donation would also be greatly appreciated by any of the community groups.

Community Projects

Wellington Night Shelter

is a Wellington-based charity providing emergency overnight accommodation for men experiencing homelessness.

Compassion Soup Kitchen

is a charity created to support people in need to live with dignity in the community.

Womens Refuge

is a women’s organisation for women and their children, to help prevent and stop family violence in New Zealand.

Downtown Community Ministry

is a charity working in the city of Wellington since 1969 to “focus on the needs of, and to help empower, those marginalised in the city.”