Street health: Practitioner service provision for Māori homeless people in Auckland

Abstract

Homelessness is more than a transient crisis. While access to housing might solve the needs of some, research has shown that the needs of homeless people are much more complex and more a symptom of systematic structural inequalities than an unanticipated emergency (Hopper, 1998). As in other countries, the homeless population in New Zealand is made up of a diverse population of men, women and intersex groups of various ages, sexualities and ethnic backgrounds. Māori are over-represented among this population due to ongoing processes of colonisation and socioeconomic exclusion (Groot et al., 2011). When compared with domiciled citizens, homeless people are more likely to experience a raft of illnesses and unmet health needs, violence, a sense of insecurity, exclusion and fear, and are more likely to commit sui- cide (Hodgetts et al., 2007). Homeless people often experience diverse ill- nesses including asthma, heart disease, diabetes, hepatitis, renal disease, dermatological conditions, malnutrition, oral disease, depression, schizo- phrenia, substance misuse and broken bones (Ellison-Loschmann & Pearce, 2006; Joly et al., 2011; Moore et al., 2007).