More than 30 faith leaders, clergy pen open letter criticising bill to move on rough sleepers

More than 30 Auckland faith leaders and clergy have put put their names to an open letter criticising the government's bill to move on rough sleepers.

The legislation passed its first reading on Thursday following a heated debate at Parliament.

The Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill would give police the power to issue move-on orders to people who are displaying disorderly, disruptive, threatening, or intimidating behaviour.

They will also apply to people who are obstructing or impeding someone entering a business, breaching the peace, begging, rough sleeping, or displaying behaviour indicating an attempt to inhabit a public place.

After being issued with such an order, the person has to leave a specified order for up to 24 hours, and what the officer deems to be a "reasonable distance" away.

People as young as 14 would be subject to the orders.

An open letter, signed by 31 clergy in Auckland, urged the government to provide more funding for homelessness support programmes.

"We believe that the way to solve the growing problem of rough sleeping in our cities is not to move people on. It is to provide stable accommodation and appropriate wrap-around support services," the letter said.

"While there may be instances when anti-social behaviour needs to be responded to, moving a person on to an unspecified place will do nothing to address the issues they are dealing with. In many cases, moving rough sleepers on may cause harm, disconnecting them from friends, support services, and ironically, regular police supervision.

"If this policy is not accompanied by significant increases in support for Housing First programmes and transitional housing, then we are not solving the problem of rough sleeping."

Inner-city priest Reverend Cate Thorn from St Matthew-in-the-City said the policy had the potential to cause real harm to vulnerable people.

"The bill isn't going to work. The government's restricted emergency housing, selling off state houses, recently restricted access to social housing. Homelessness has increased in the last couple of years. The bill doesn't solve homelessness, it just moves the issue around the city," she said.

"There's an increasing population of people, for example women in the 65 plus age group, people who just simply can't afford housing, who are having no choice but to move. And so within Auckland itself there is an increasing number of people who are living without houses and in the cold weather that's not getting any better."

Speaking at the first reading on Thursday, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the bill was not criminalising homelessness, but would simply give police the power to issue move-on orders.

Only people who refused to follow the orders would face prosecution, and people lawfully protesting or conducting charitable or not-for-profit fundraising would be exempt.

Goldsmith said there had been "unprecedented" levels of disruption in city centres with businesses, residents, and visitors playing the price.

"Our focus is ensuring that we reclaim those streets and those town centres for the enjoyment of people who live there, who work there, who visit there," he said.

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