New Outreach Rapid Response Service
January 12, 2026
We’ve recently launched a new outreach service to support people experiencing short-term homelessness, who may not meet the Housing First criteria. The Outreach Rapid Response team is made up of five outreach workers, a housing locator, and two nurses.
In their first week on the streets, the team encountered 19 people newly on the streets, including an 87-year-old woman, a 70-year-old, and a 17-year-old.
Housing First Manager Nic Fleming says they are increasingly seeing older people living on the streets, and a variety of reasons why they end up homeless.
"They have been living with family, and then family have moved away or gone into hospital. Or there has been trauma with some kind of issue in the family, or people passing away and they haven't known where to go."
"There are massive gaps which leaves people walking around Ōtautahi who are stuck because they just can't find stable housing but also don't want to go to a rest home or a mental health facility. So where can they go?"
The team are also observing a growing issue of people who leave hospital or jail with no proper arrangements for where they will live.
"This new service will give us a much better idea of how many people are homeless in Christchurch, as it can be a hidden problem and hard to pin numbers down," says Nic.
However, the lack of suitable housing remains an ongoing issue.
"Where is the housing? It's horrible to build up someone's expectations up - oh I'm in this service, I heard it's really great but then I have to sit here and wait for housing, when is that going to happen? And the truth is, we just don't know," says Nic.
