Dunedin teen 'lived homeless for two years'

"I was smart about being homeless. I found warm places to stay and I never got caught by the police."

Seventeen-year-old Gareth (not his real name) says he has spent two years living rough on the streets of Dunedin, stealing to eat and finding a bed wherever he could.

A few months ago, his life took a more positive course but he warns homelessness is alive and well in Dunedin.

"The police will say there's no problem with homelessness but just look at the kids sitting around in the Octagon," Gareth said.

"Heaps are struggling on their own, sleeping on couches or wherever. For two years I was one of them."

Things got tough for Gareth when his grandmother died about four years ago and his mother had difficulty coping.

She ended up in a flatting situation where there was no room for Gareth, so he stayed at a friend's house for a couple of weeks.

It was a roof over his head but that was all. It was 2008. He was 14.

"I got really hungry so I robbed a school.

"I stole laptops which I was going to sell and get money for food but I got caught."

By this time, Gareth had stopped going to school.

He moved into a flat with two friends in Shiel Hill but his plan to register for the unemployment benefit came unstuck when Work and Income told Gareth he needed some form of personal identification.

"They told me to get a birth certificate which cost money, and I had no way of getting any money."

At first he continued to sleep rent-free on his mates' couch. But food was still a problem.

"They were on the unemployment benefit so I had to find my own way of getting food. Normally I just went to a supermarket and stole it," he said.

"There are 15-year-olds in the Octagon who go to Countdown every day and steal pies and drinks just because they can and because it helps them survive. They get really hungry because their parents don't [care]."

A typical day for Gareth consisted of hours of walking around, hanging out in the Octagon, or using the computers at the teen space in the Moray Pl public library.

He did a bit of BMX riding and became passionate about parkour - the informal sport of crossing urban terrain, often from building to building, as directly and quickly as possible.

"It kept me sane."

Occasionally he went and visited his mother "just because she's my mum".

The nights on mates' couches became less frequent - about once a week.

"But sometimes a whole week on a couch, if I was lucky."

Otherwise he would find whatever shelter he could - whether it was staying up all night in internet cafes playing online war games, sleeping on the roof of Otago Boys' High School or, when it rained, in bushes.

"Those big-as lights at the Queens Gardens are really warm. I would just sit on them and look around."

There is a teenager hanging around town who reminds Gareth of himself in one particular way.

"He smells real bad. I remember smelling like that. I used to go to Moana Pool and say I was picking up my little brother and then go have a shower."

Gareth said he was regularly threatened, often by young gang members.

"I stood up to them. I hit them. I figured it was survival of the fittest."

Gareth did not know how many young people were homeless but said he had come to recognise the "regulars".

"Often it's an endless cycle of being homeless, getting picked up by the police, going to a CYFS home, and then back on the street."

For Gareth, crisis brought a turning point. In late 2010 he was arrested for stealing food from a house.