Surge in homelessness in Auckland and Auckland Council new trial AI customer service initiative w/ Councillor Julie Fairey: 13 March 2025

Auckland Council’s Community Committee has sent a ‘please help’ letter to the government after reports from their Community Impact team showed a 53% rise in the number of people sleeping rough over the past four months.

This follows changes last year by the Ministry of Social Development to the rules surrounding emergency housing, introducing stricter entry criteria and new requirements which make it difficult to stay. 

While Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, earlier this week, denied that these changes have led to an increase in homelessness, Housing First Auckland programme manager Rami Alrudani said that outreach workers have been stretched thin, dealing with “more and more homelessness every day”.

Producer Sara spoke with Councillor Julie Fairey about the rise in homelessness in Tāmaki Makaurau. 

As well, Auckland Council are trialling an AI digital assistant to help improve their customer support services.

The ‘Ask Auckland Council’ pilot, presented at February’s Revenue, Expenditure and Value Committee, is being funded by Google Cloud at no cost to ratepayers.

Auckland Council receives 1.5 million calls every year and coordinates region-wide services across multiple platforms. The new system is designed to bridge the gap between Aucklanders and digital services, reducing the effort required to seek out information

Starting on the topic of homelessness, Sara asked Julie if she was surprised to see a stark increase in the latest data around the number of people sleeping rough.