Outreach Services
The past year has been one of significant growth, deepening need, and increasing maturity for Visionwest’s Outreach Services. What began as a small and developing area of work has grown into a larger, more visible, and more connected team responding to the realities of homelessness and rough sleeping.
The Outreach RV at Albany
Over the year, the Outreach Services team expanded from five to eight kaimahi, creating greater capacity to find, support, and walk alongside people experiencing homelessness. The addition of the Outreach RV was a major milestone, giving the team a practical and visible way to take support directly into the community. This helped strengthen engagement with people who may otherwise be difficult to reach and reinforce Outreach’s role as a frontline, relationship-based response.
At the same time, the number of reported rough sleepers surged, with the list roughly doubling during the year. While many people were successfully housed, new referrals continued to arrive just as quickly, or even faster. This highlighted both the effectiveness of the team’s work and the scale of unmet need across the community.
Jeremy Nicholls, Outreach Team Leader, speaks on panel at St Pauls
Another important area of progress was the strengthening of relationships across the wider sector. Outreach Services built better connections with key stakeholders including MSD, Auckland Council, local boards, Housing First partners, the Salvation Army, Kāhui Tū Kaha, Auckland Church Network, and others. The team also had a growing role in education, advocacy, and community engagement, including participating in conversations around move-on orders and events that helped raise awareness of rough sleeping and homelessness. A key part of this work has been helping lift the voices of people with lived experience of rough sleeping. Our work in this area must remain grounded in reality.
The year also brought challenges. The scale of need continued to grow quarter by quarter, placing pressure on systems, relationships, and kaimahi. As Outreach is still a relatively new and developing area of work, the team has also had to navigate how best to collaborate with wider Visionwest teams and external partners.
The most rewarding aspects of the year have been the trust built with people, the camaraderie within the team, and the ability to uphold people’s dignity in difficult circumstances. At its heart, Outreach Services has continued to bring hope, direction, and practical care to people who need to know they have not been forgotten.