20 Feb 2014

Auckland shelter forced to close

10:18 pm on 20 February 2014

One of a only a handful of homeless shelters in Auckland is being forced to close its doors due to lack of funding.

The Island Child Charitable Trust provides temporary housing for about 40 families a year after many had been sleeping in cars, garages and on the streets in east Auckland.

It was set up nine years ago by Danielle Bergin after she found herself homeless.

"How can it be that one quarter of Auckland super-city has one homeless shelter and it does not receive any yearly contract funding from any of the ministries that refer clients from them?"

Ms Bergin said on Thursday the trust's eight-week residential programme in Glen Innes will close in March after a long and fruitless search for funding including making repeated applications to the Ministry of Social Development.

The closure will leave a huge gap in services in the east of the city and homelessness will become more visible, she believed.