The government is trumpeting the success of their Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant, but Whare Tauranga director Tommy Wilson believes the homeless problem is only getting worse.

Last week the government reported 2600 New Zealanders had benefited from the uptake of the special needs grant.

The grant serves as financial support for households in need of emergency housing, contributing towards the cost of short-term accommodation, for up to seven days initially with extensions available where required.

'We're providing a quick, short-term solution for those in need while longer term solutions are being developed,” says Social Housing Minister Amy Adams.

'The number of New Zealanders requiring support is expected to reduce as 1400 additional contracted emergency housing places come available in the coming months.

'This is part of $344 million announced last year for emergency housing support, which included funding for up to 2200 contracted places, and will provide households with accommodation for up to three months.”

Tommy says, in reality, the situation is not getting any better.

'The level of homelessness is getting worse in Tauranga. The prices of houses are going up, and so are the rents, which correlates with an increase in homelessness.

'Throwing them into hotels or motels are short-term solutions. These people need fixing up, and to do that you need at least six weeks with them. That's why Whare Tauranga has been so successful.”

However, he says their budget is stretched thin at the moment – they can only pay for five workers, but have 15 – and they need to expand their services if a real difference is to be made.

'We need another two Whare Tauranga out at Greerton and Merivale, which could make my commitment to us being homeless-free by 2020 achievable.”

He doesn't believe the special needs grant can work.

'What experience does a motel owner have in social services, or fixing up people who need all kinds of counselling, budgeting advice, drug and alcohol and domestic violence services? The solutions are there, but the system as it is isn't working. It's not about the homelessness; it's about how they became homeless.”

His suggestion for the government is to pour some resources into front-line services like Whare Tauranga.

'A lot of people don't understand most of these people are Maori not from Tauranga. About 85 per cent of Maori we deal with aren't from here. So when the government say iwi will look after iwi, and pour funding into them, that's a flawed system, because the people aren't under the umbrella of the local iwi.

'It's easy for the government to pass the problem onto iwi, but iwi have no experience with these people because they don't have the tribal connections.”

He believes Whare Tauranga's approach is having a real impact, more so than the government's initiatives.

'We've put about 20 families through Whare Tauranga, and we get them to a place where we can take them to a landlord and say these guys have a warrant of fitness now, they will be good tenants.”