Kat has lived on the streets of Wellington and Auckland since was 10 years old.

She knows the doorways, bridges, and areas of the inner city where she can find shelter.

Now 24, Kat wants to speak out about the dangers confronting rough sleepers and how things are even harder now, being young, without a roof over your head.

“The streets they’re pretty dangerous for young people like me to be there. Violence, drugs. Sleeping in public is really dangerous, under bridges, in car parks,” Kat says.

It’s something youth worker Aaron Hendry increasingly sees in his mahi running Kick Back, a service based in Tāmaki Makaurau that offers wrap-around support for vulnerable rangatahi.

“We’re talking about, in some cases, children living on the street, living in environments where they are at constant risk of being physically assaulted, sexually assaulted. Where their lives at times are at risk,” according to Hendry.

Not only at risk from others, but also from themselves

“There are times where they’re leaving our doors, and we fear whether we’ll see them again. And that’s the thing that keeps me up at night, is that we’re going to lose someone, that one of the young people that we care for and we love is going to die because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because they give up hope.”

Kick Back is currently monitoring around 100 young people in our largest city, the youngest of whom is 11 years old.

Hendry says what he is seeing is a crisis.

“A lot of our young people are now being directed towards lodges and hostels. These environments are often really unsafe.

“The pricing is often exploitative, we’re talking like $660 for a tiny, tiny room that is dark and mouldy and cold and damp.

“It doesn’t seem like the Government understands how much of a risk they are putting these children, these young people’s lives in.”

Between Sept 2024 and Jan 2025, there was a 53% increase in the number of homeless in Tāmaki Makaurau, meaning those sleeping with no shelter.

Several factors have contributed to this, including the government’s slashing of $20 million from rangatahi transitional housing in the 2024 budget.

“Since then, we’ve seen more young people seeking support, being denied that support, and sleeping rough and being in really dangerous situations as a result,” adds Hendry.

Also in August, the government changed the rules around emergency housing criteria, giving preference to families over young people, which has left rangatahi like Kat more vulnerable than ever.

“I had slept in my car with a friend of mine. We went to Work and Income. We tried to ask for some help and housing, but they just turned us away and said no.”

He Pā Piringa

Māhera Maihi runs He Pā Piringa, a 10-bed accommodation facility for homeless youth.

Maihi has seen firsthand how much harder it has become for rangatahi to get on housing wait lists.

“We’ve noticed in our stats that nearly a 100% of our young people have been declined from emergency housing.”

He Pā Piringa provides a tikanga-based, kaupapa-Māori solution to the housing crisis.

“The rules of the marae are exactly the same rules when you come to our whare. When you go to your marae, you know you’ve got to take your shoes off at the marae. You know that if you got angry, you can’t punch holes in your marae. You will get in trouble for doing that. Same, at our whare you don’t punch holes in the walls.”

All young people here have to stay a year to learn the skills they need, like Zevania Mead, who has just moved in.

“I fell in love straight away, and everything was here, beautiful kitchen, I was like fantastic. I was like ‘Holy, cool as!’

He Pā Piringa can’t keep up with demand, with more than 100 young people on the waitlist, and only 22 available beds.

“We’ve had zero property damage, zero police call-outs for violence against each other, which is an achievement in itself. It’s unheard of, not just in New Zealand, but actually all over the world, in terms of youth transitional housing,” says Māhera Maihi.

But after the year is up, rangatahi face yet more uncertainty over their living arrangements.

Aaron Hendry is demanding that more be done for our most at-risk rangatahi.

“Think about the reality that for some children, the first time they get a roof over their heads, the first time they get food in their bellies, the first time they get some form of stability is in a prison for children.

“When you actually start to reflect on that, something is going seriously wrong in our communities. Something is seriously wrong with our priorities. And that’s the consequences of homelessness.

“That’s the consequences of abandoning, you know, our children.”