In this episode, we meet Jeremy Nicholls, Supportive Housing Outreach Leader at Visionwest in West Auckland.

Jeremy did not come to outreach work through a housing career. He came through a Bible college, a taxi, and twenty-five years running a homeless shelter in Chicago's Uptown neighbourhood. He returned to New Zealand in 2021 and has been leading street-level outreach ever since.

In this episode, Jeremy talks about what his team finds every day — people living in vans along quiet residential streets in Birkenhead and Glenfield, couples moving between Blockhouse Bay and Ōrewa keeping the warrant of fitness current because the car is the house, a man who had been sleeping rough for five years because of a traumatic brain injury with no addiction, no mental health crisis, no drama, just a brain injury and nowhere to go.

He talks about why outreach is relational work and why that is not incidental to its effectiveness but the entire method. He talks about the stereotype that everyone sleeping rough is addicted or mentally unwell, why it is not true, and why antisocial behaviour in urban centres is routinely blamed on the wrong people. And he talks about what he wants: decisions about homelessness made by people who actually understand it.

We'd like to thank Jeremy 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.