In this episode, we meet Jill Hawkey, Executive Director of the Christchurch Methodist Mission, where she has spent twelve years growing a service spanning early childhood to end-of-life care.

Jill trained as a social worker, spent twenty-five years in international aid and development, and returned to Ōtautahi just before the 2011 earthquakes. In this episode, Jill talks about what she has watched Housing First deliver in Christchurch — decreases in hospitalisation, decreases in mental health admissions, people who were homeless now on staff — and why over 100 people are currently receiving Housing First support while still sleeping on the street, because the housing simply does not exist to put them in.

She talks about New Zealand's social housing stock sitting at 4% when Australia is at 16% and much of Europe is in the twenties and thirties, and why the private sector will never build the one- and two-bedroom accessible homes that low-income households actually need.

Jill makes the case for a cross-party ten-year housing strategy — one percentage point a year, insulated from electoral cycles — and for why, if we start from housing as a human right, everything else follows.

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

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The CHA Hub Podcast is sponsored by our Founding Partner, Westpac New Zealand.