Supporters hope for 11th-hour reprieve for Whangārei rugby ground rough sleepers

Whangārei residents opposed to council plans to evict rough sleepers from a disused sports club are heading to the site on Thursday morning in a show of support for the homeless.The sportsground-dwellers had been given until Thursday 8 October to leave - but supporters were hoping an 11th-hour meeting between Mayor Ken Couper and social agencies late Wednesday could still lead to an extension.At times as many as 50 people had been living at the Old Boys' Rugby Club grounds, with most staying in tents but a few in makeshift shelters built from scrap timber.The encampment had semi-official status, with rough sleepers setting up camp on the clubgrounds hill after the Whangārei District Council closed down a "tent city" in the town centre in 2023.The council had now, however, declared time was up at Old Boys' site.In June this year around 40 people, including teenaged children, were living in tents and improvised shelters at Whangarei's Old Boys' sports ground.RNZ / Peter de GraafThe remaining residents, thought to number about 10, were hand-delivered eviction notices late last month, citing health, safety and operational risks.Supporters of the city's homeless, including the owners of the Jesus is Lord Barbershop on nearby Port Road, were planning to be at the site from 7am Thursday in protest.Staff from Whare Āwhina, which provides support for the city's homeless, had been back at the encampment in recent days trying to arrange alternative accommodation.When RNZ visited in June, at least 40 people were living at the site, including teenage children, young men with nowhere to go after release from prison, and people with high health needs.There was a single water tap at the bottom of a steep hill and the nearest public toilet was half a kilometre away.The number of rough sleepers dropped after Kāinga Ora opened a new housing complex, the biggest in regional New Zealand, in June.George and Barbara had been living in a tent at the Old Boys' sports ground in Whangarei for 18 months when RNZ caught up with them in June.RNZ / Peter de GraafAs of last week the number of homeless still on site was about eight, but that had increased slightly in recent days.Neta Kerepeti, a hapū representative on the council's Te Kārearea Committee, said she was concerned by what she described as the council's lack of process - and the fact people were being evicted before alternative accommodation had been found.That risked a repeat of the same situation, at a different site, in future."I'm hopeful there'll [be] a pause on the eviction until some semblance of a joined-up plan can be discussed and agreed, by council with those organisations that are best positioned to provide support."Evicting the Old Boys' residents would not solve the problem, Kerepeti said."Where are they supposed to go? Moving people on without some kind of clear resource or plan doesn't resolve homelessness, it entrenches it. It seems punitive. It further displaces whānau and deepens their hardship. And that surely is not the kind of city we want Whangārei to be."Neta Kerepeti, a hapū representative on the council's Te Kārearea Committee.Supplied / J.H.S.WJim Sephton, the council's general manager for transport and community infrastructure, said the decision was driven by "cumulative health, safety and operational risks at the site, which have reached a point where the area can no longer be safely maintained and managed".Recent inspections had identified broken glass embedded in the fields, large amounts of rubbish, makeshift structures and significant fire risk.Safety concerns had prompted contractors to stop maintaining the council-owned site, compromising emergency access for events at neighbouring Semenoff Stadium.Sephton said nearby businesses had raised concerns about staff and customer safety, property security, emergency access, waste and dogs."Council has closed the park to normal use and is taking steps to clear and safely manage the area. The notices are part of a staged process to reduce risk and secure the site. Council's immediate focus is the safety of everyone at or near the site."He said the council had no long-term plan as yet for the land, nor an alternative location for people leaving the Old Boys' site."Council has been engaging with social service providers and other agencies about available support pathways and next steps ... That engagement began before the notices were issued and is continuing."Kerepeti said the council did not provide housing, but it should work more closely with organisations that did, and take a broader approach to the problem of homelessness."It should be looking beyond what's going on at the Old Boys' rugby grounds, because our city's not immune to what's happening in Auckland with overcrowding and the cost of living pushing some whānau north. Many, we understand, are settling in our rural communities where services are thin and housing is scarce. We need to understand that trend. Who's arriving? Where are they going? Who's looking out for them? And what additional pressures does that put on our marae and our schools and hapū?"The last official count of the number of people in Whangārei without any form of shelter, in December 2025, was 237.That included 75 people aged 65 or over living in cars or on the street.Another 1900 people were couch-surfing or living in condemned buildings.