Speaking to a report on the Ōtepoti Dunedin Housing Plan at yesterday’s council meeting, housing principal policy adviser Gill Brown said she was unsure where data on the city’s homeless would come from in future.
"The census is the only place where we get a lot of our homeless data specifically and it’s the only time we get the data on the uninhabitable homes, because people are specifically asked about it.
"I can’t see where else we will get moving forward."
Last week, Statistics Minister Shane Reti announced the census — which had existed in a similar format for more than 70 years — would be replaced with a combination of administrative data from other government agencies and smaller annual surveys completed by a population sample.
There was to be no census in 2028.
The change follows a major review carried out last year; Mr Reti said the traditional model was "no longer financially viable".
In Ms Brown’s report, census data showed 4092 Dunedin residents were in need of urgent housing as they were either unsheltered (267) or living in temporary housing (933), overcrowded conditions (792) or uninhabitable homes, for example due to mould or disrepair (2100).
Ms Brown said although homelessness figures recorded in the census were often estimates, the level of data moving forward would be incomplete.
Cr Christine Garey said the "abolition" of the census was concerning as the information was vital to decision making.
Cr Sophie Barker said the decision to scrap the census would present a problem for the council and she hoped there would be an opportunity for the council to advocate for its retention.
"If you don’t know how big an issue is then how can you actually address it?
"I know the census if super expensive, but we do need to know what’s going on."
Cr Mandy Mayhem said the council’s hands appeared tied over the government’s decision.
"Now there’s a serious risk that smaller data from tax records and school enrolments is going to inform our population stats.
"There is a huge amount of information that is just going to disappear."
