20 July 2023
Media: Stuff
Topic: Police callouts to motels providing emergency accommodation
Enquiry
Benn Bathgate from Stuff here, dropping you a line to ask for some comment from Mayor Tania.
To provide some background, back in January 2022 I filed an OIA request with police related to five Rotorua motels. I wanted to know how many times they had been called to attend there in 2016, then 2020 and 2021.
That was knocked back, so I went to the Ombudsman who recently ruled that the info should be released. All is attached here, but the nub being across the five motels there were a total of 46 call outs in 2016.
That jumps to 259 in 2020, and 491 in 2021.
I wanted to ask Mayor Tania:
Should police have attempted to withhold this information?
Is she surprised at the obvious spike in call outs that accompanied their use as emergency accommodation providers?
Response
From Rotorua Mayor, Tania Tapsell:
“The spike in call outs is not surprising given the significant amount of people who were placed in emergency housing motels over that time. After strong pushback from the community, and advocacy from myself and Council, we’ve been able to establish an exit plan alongside
Government. This has already resulted in positive progress and we are no longer seeing as many issues occurring within the inner city.
“There is still much to do and we continue to work closely with our Housing Accord partners to reduce the use of emergency housing motels in Rotorua to near zero as soon as possible. And also to improve the safety of both people living in emergency housing and our wider community.
“There is no doubt these motels caused this spike. To improve the experiences and perceptions of people living in and visiting Rotorua, Council is currently developing a community safety plan alongside Police.”
*Please note it is not for us to comment on how police share or withhold information.