De Paul House battling to meet demand for accommodation

De Paul House general manager Jan Rutledge said they can’t keep up with the number of families wanting help.

“This year, we are already up to just over 700 inquiries, and that was three months before the 12-month period was up,” Ms Rutledge said.

“Last year, we did 700 in the whole year. This year we are going to exceed it. And we are managing an active waitlist at the moment of 60 whanau.”

De Paul House provides accommodation for 42 families on the North Shore, giving them somewhere to stay before permanent placement can be found.

Nicole Bishop, social worker at De Paul House, said “wherever you go, you can see people sleeping under a bush or just in a car. That is . . . some of our families”.

“If you see people sleeping in a car, they might have kids in the car with them, and I just think that is the hardest thing, especially in winter when it is cold, it is really, really tough. The kids might go to school and the other kids don’t even know they haven’t got a home to go to,” Ms Bishop said.

“We have just housed a new family, who I am meeting today, who were in a car, and these are with kids, so they are not just single adults,” she said.

De Paul House is an agency of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland. It was established in 1986 following concerns about the growing problem of homelessness.

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Homelessness is on the rise on the North Shore (Stuff)