In this episode, we meet Sehai Orgad, Senior Responsible Officer for City Safety at Wellington City Council.

Sehai came to this work through the community — and through a conviction that homelessness and city safety are two different problems that require two different responses. The person sleeping rough on a Wellington street is not a threat to the person walking by. The person sleeping rough is more unsafe than the passerby. That distinction, simple as it sounds, is politically significant — and it shapes everything Wellington City Council's approach is built on.

In this episode, Sehai talks about the Wellington Homelessness Coordination Service, why bringing mental health and addiction services into the room was the game changer, and what four and five-hour deep-dive case reviews actually reveal about the people the system has found hardest to reach. She makes the case for coordination over new money — and for knowing people by name before things escalate.

We'd like to thank Sehai for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.

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