Tauranga's ongoing housing shortage is seeing about 50 families a night sleeping in their cars, a city council workshop has been told.

A workshop on Freedom Camping and associated issues last week, heard that among the tourists and seasonal workers, the city's homeless make a third distinct group of freedom campers.

'There are significant homeless people in vehicles across the city,” says staff member Philip King.

'They are often local people who have jobs, sleeping in cars with children.”

Council staff noticed the homeless during surveys undertaken over recent months assessing the impact of the Freedom Camping Act on the city.

The workshop was held to explore the effects, assess the complaints and look at ways forward.

'We are not sure how accurate that information is, it probably comes and goes,” says Mayor Greg Brownless.

'We have decided to keep it a separate issue. We are going to be a bit tougher on freedom campers. We will have to see what happens with the business of homeless people sleeping in cars.

'I really don't know what to do about that myself. It's a social issue, I think government and council has to work together on that.”

The outcome of the workshop is the intention to take a tougher approach to enforcing the city's freedom camping bylaw which limits how many campers can stay at each of the city parks and for how long.

'Basically council have taken a softly, softly, approach but it has got out of hand, the freedom camping, so we are going to have to be a bit more, firm,” says Greg. 'And insist that if a park is restricted to five campers, that's it. And you need to be self-contained.

'We were shown pictures taken by some of the residents near Kulim and Ferguson, and it just looks like a normal camping ground, with all the attendant washing and everything. That's taking the hospitality too far.

'I remember freedom camping as a kid, you would go to some isolated beach, now because of this Freedom Camping Act the Government has thrust upon us, it's in the middle of our cities, and we are left to cope.”

Because the council does not want the situation to drag on, three councillors have been nominated to work with council staff on the issue and make some adjustments to the city's freedom camping bylaw.

In the last five months, the council has received 200 freedom camping complaints. Most in relation to amount of vehicles at any particular location being more than is permitted. There have been few complaints about anti-social behaviour.