Six was homeless for many years. She documents the stories of Karangahape Roads’s “streeties” for her community newspaper K Rd Chronicle.

Auckland Council and Rainbow Youth have launched a $150,000 pilot programme to stop lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people sleeping rough. They say the LGBTI community is a high risk group for homelessness and are some of the streets' most vulnerable.

LGBTI people, less than five per cent of New Zealand's population, are over-represented in homeless tallies around the world – including Auckland's point-in-time count of rough sleepers in 2018. A 2012 study by the US-based Williams Institute reported 40 per cent of homeless under 25-year-olds identified as LGBTI in the United States – and anecdotal evidence suggested that figure was mirrored in Auckland, said Rainbow Youth's executive director Frances Arns.

Almost one in five transgender respondents in Waikato University's 2018 Counting Ourselves survey said they had experienced homelessness.

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Rainbow Youth executive director Frances Arns says tackling LGBTI homelessness in Auckland will be a "big job", but with council funding progress was underway.

The council has granted Rainbow Youth $150,000 to fund New Zealand's first social worker solely dedicated to homeless LGBTI youth for the next two years. They will focus on homelessness prevention, and on upskilling existing service providers to better serve LGBTI rough sleepers.

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Formerly homeless transgender woman Six, 49, said the scheme was "probably the most pragmatic thing they could do". A journalist behind community newspaper and video series K Rd Chronicle, Six attested to the specific problems transgender people faced sleeping rough. Much stemmed from liquored-up young men spilling from bars and "looking for fights or sex".

Six said transgender rough sleepers had the ultra-vulnerability of homeless women in general, plus the threat of transphobia – discrimination and hostility against transgender people – that gets more violent with alcohol consumption. Many transgender rough sleepers fell into sex work and substance abuse while on the streets, she added.

LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF Six, a formerly homeless transgender journalist, applauded the idea of a scheme specifically helping LGBTI rough sleepers.

Arns said the main reason for young LGBTI's high homelessness rates was family fall-out. Parents rejecting, disapproving of, or simply not understanding their child's sexual or gender identity.

"That drives them apart and over time leads to a toxic relationship; the young person may get kicked out of home or run away.

"Then we see young people getting into romantic relationships with really unhealthy power dynamics – just to have somewhere to sleep – or sleeping rough."

The pattern was most common in rural areas and in culturally or religiously conservative families, said Arns. There was also a trend for LGBTI people, especially transgender people, to migrate to urban centres known to have established queer communities.

Arns said most young people seeking support with homelessness from Rainbow Youth were transgender or non binary – identifying as neither exclusively male or female.

Most groups helping New Zealand's rough sleepers off the streets are charities rooted in the Christian faith, which Arns said could be a barrier to LGBTI homeless seeking help. Many had a dim view of Christianity, often due to experiences at home, school, or church.

Churches and church leaders have had rocky relationships with LGBTI identities, opposing gay marriage, blaming homosexuals for earthquakes, and refusing to ordain LGBTI clergy, for instance.

Another barrier was the acceptance LGBTI youth got from other rough sleepers, said Arns. That sense of community meant some were reluctant to leave the streets.

Rainbow Youth's pilot programme was officially launched on Thursday, an event attended by Auckland's Mayor Phil Goff – who has previously vowed to end the city's "chronic" homelessness.

DAVID WHITE/STUFF Auckland's Mayor Phil Goff said the city's homelessness should be tackled one group at a time.

He described homelessness as "bad for society as a whole", affecting people's health, propensity to offend, and security.

"If we're going to solve it, we need to look at it group by group and tackle the issues that lead to it," said Goff.

Arns acknowledged the new social worker faced "a big job", but said just having someone in that role was an "exciting" mark of progress.