You came out to live on the streets when you were 18.
Yeah. Why did you stay?
Oh, because I loved the atmosphere.
This might sound like a stupid question,
but do you want to live on the street?
I would not mind
a beautiful house and all that sort of stuff.
It's just that I've adapted to this atmosphere.
This is how I am.
More than 41,000 people in New Zealand are now homeless
and about half live right here in our biggest city.
At the Auckland City Mission, record numbers
of food parcels are being delivered every month.
We're about to meet its chief executive, Chris Farrelly,
and I'm keen to ask him if he thinks
the homelessness crisis is a problem that can be solved.
I have seen some stuff here
that I never thought I'd ever see in New Zealand.
So I go home really troubled.
Most people drive by here, they see the mission,
they see queues, they see this,
but they don't see what's happening inside.
It's that everybody that we are working with,
there's been serious trauma in their lives
somewhere along the line.
In the morning there'd be up to 100 people here
for breakfast, and tonight there'll be
about 100 people here for dinner.
During the day it's a crisis centre.
So the doorway we just walked through,
every single day of the year it's open - 365 days.
And people with all sorts of needs come through that door.
About 70,000 people came through in the course of the year,
usually in crisis or in some form of desperate need.
There are 400 people at our medical centre
who have no address except here.
These food parcels are packed up
at our distribution centre and on a daily basis
distributed to food banks all over Auckland.
This one you're seeing now
is for a family of four for four days.
Some are homeless, some are working poor, some have homes.
In order to keep their homes they have no money to buy food.
Tutors come in here.
Art, carving, sculpture.
And also this is a sacred place.
Here on the wall you'll see a number of pictures
of people who have passed away recently.
Sadly among these people there's a number of people
who have died on our streets.
The current coalition government has said
every New Zealander should be able to live in dignity.
It's committed $100 million to solving
the homelessness crisis.
Is this just a pipe dream, or is this actually possible?
I believe it will take many, many years
and it will go much longer than the term of this government
or future governments.
This has not just happened in the last two or three years.
It's been a system breakdown over many, many, many years,
because we've got two things at the moment:
We've got the current group of people who are homeless,
which is large, then we've got another group
who potentially will be homeless,
unless something way upstream is done to prevent that.
The current government has committed itself
to a national strategy to end homelessness,
now that's very brave to do that.
This will take some years.
It will take more than $100 million
and the programmes we have at the moment.
The good news is we have started, we're on the journey,
and I mean, that has to be applauded.
Ken began sleeping on Auckland streets
when he was 18.
He's since struggled with health problems
and alcohol addiction.
I have to go home.
My cousin wants me to go back to Kaitaia and stay up there.
Do some fishing.
Because I know how to fish.
What might need to happen
for you to go up there?
Does your cousin say 'stop drinking?'
Yeah, you're not wrong there.
I have to stop drinking because I've got liver
and kidney problems and I've got pancreatitis.
And that's no excuse.
That's something a man on the street
shouldn't be doing -
drinking his heart out as I am.
Yeah.
It sucks, do you know what I'm saying?
Ken often visits the City Mission for help
with his health problems, and he could benefit
from the $17 million the government
is putting into the mission's expansion and redevelopment.
That's on top of $27 million from the previous government.
This is what we're calling it Home Ground.
It's the new Auckland City Mission building,
which basically is going to be our current services
but much larger, so that's the health centre,
detox centre, crisis care, food,
but included in this will be a large accommodation.
There will be 80 units in this building.
New Zealanders do not want homelessness to be the norm
in our community.
What we pick up is a growing degree of concern,
compassion, anger, anxiety about this current situation
that does also give me hope.
If the community as a whole becomes used to this,
becomes numb to this, becomes accepting of this,
then we are in deep trouble.