Christchurch City Missioner Michael Gorman says homelessness is a national problem but he believes the city council has a duty to ensure Christchurch citizens are provided for.

Ensuring homeless people have a roof over their heads this winter is not the Christchurch City Council's issue to solve, Ali Jones says.

The city councillor has spoken against a plan by Deputy Mayor Vicki Buck for the city to spend up to $400,000 underwriting the leasing of private rental properties to homeless people.

"At the risk of sounding cold hearted, I cannot support it," Jones said.

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CITY COUNCIL HAS A DUTY TO PROVIDE

Christchurch City Missioner Michael Gorman said homelessness was a national problem that must predominantly be dealt with by central government, which had the assets to build social housing.

However, he thought the city council did have a duty to ensure Christchurch citizens were provided for.



"I can't quite understand why anybody would say homelessness is not all of our problems, really."



Gorman said the council's $400,000 plan to underwrite private rental costs was an "immediate fix".



"Homelessness is often much more complex than just a lack of housing... or resourcing," he said.



"It's about a person's ability to carve out for themselves a decent life."



"There is a lot of people who've never found home to be a safe place, so they are very reluctant to put themselves at risk again without considerable support."



Amy Burke, founder of Help for the Homeless, which supports homeless people in Christchurch, said she was "a bit in shock" after reading Jones' comments.



On Facebook, Burke wrote: "Christchurch homeless may not be [the city council's ] 'core business'. However, the people of Christchurch and the rebuild of our beautiful city is their core business and if we are to build a better future for us all that needs to include the homeless."



Burke was in full support of Vicki Buck's $400,000 plan.

Joseph Johnson Mervyn "Jim" Cross, 69, when he lived out of his car near Christchurch Hospital.

She said winter was coming and people in the homeless community were already sick.



Overcrowding could lead to another death, she said.



"Something needs to be done and it needs to be done now," she said.



PROPOSAL TO BE FURTHER INVESTIGATED



Buck proposed the concept at a housing taskforce meeting on homelessness last week. The issue went to the council's communities, housing and economic development committee meeting on Thursday. The committee instructed staff to further investigate the plan and give a full report to the council on May 28. Jones did not want further information sought.



"I get where Vicki is coming from, but this is not part of what we should do. It not our core business. This is not social housing. This is kids, this is drug addiction, this is families and criminality. There's a whole lot of stuff in here we should not be dealing with."



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Buck said the council already had such tenants in its social housing units.

The $400,000 would come from the social housing fund, not from the rates pool, but it would mean a planned social housing development would be delayed.

STACY SQUIRES/STUFF Deputy Mayor Vicki Buck, who wants the council to underwrite the leasing of private rental properties to homeless people.

The money would be enough to provide a weekly subsidy for up to 50 properties in the first year and a smaller number in the second year.

Jones was the only committee member to vote against getting the full report, but other councillors expressed concerns that homelessness was not council's core business.

Cr Paul Lonsdale said it was a government issue, not a city council one.



"We're getting so far away from our core business, it's not funny. Why should it fall back on us?"



The council was trying to solve too many problems, he said.



"We need to be more focussed ... put more pressure on the government to come to the party on this issue, but in the end we've got to think about what is our core business," Lonsdale said.

Buck said the reason the council should do something was because these people were part of the community.

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The move would solve the worst of the homelessness problem for the winter, Buck said.

"We have to do something. We can sit there and analyse the problem for a very long time and there will be flaws whatever we do, but we have to do something. I'm not okay that 16-year-olds are living on the street," she said.

Cr Glenn Livingstone could not think of anything more "core" than providing shelter for homeless people. He did not want the debate to turn into a battle about who should be dealing with it.

"We provide hope, we provide shelter. This is what we do and I'm going to fight tooth and nail on this. There are not many things I'd die in a ditch over, but this is one of them," Livingstone said.

Cr Andrew Turner said he appreciated it was not council's core business in terms of the Local Government Act, but these were not normal times.

"From a moral point of view there is only one decision I can make."