Auckland Council patrollers in the central city. Photo: RNZ / Finn Blackwell
Six months after Auckland Council increased street patrols as part of a safety plan for the city, those on the front line say it is making a difference.
While the patrols aim to reduce crime and improve safety, they are also looking out for Aucklanders who call the streets their home.
For Malcolm Heinrich and his team, most mornings start with a briefing about the previous day's activities and looking over the day ahead.
Then it is time to get Auckland open for business - which involves waking rough sleepers and moving them on from doorways, bus stops and public buildings as commuters arrive for work.
It is a job that can come with a lot of abuse.
"It's every day," said Heinrich.
"This is a hard job because if you're going to get told every morning basically to 'eff off', you can be an officer that's going to walk past it and you don't see, then there's no interaction and your morning's going to be easy,
"But if you're going to stop people and you say 'look you need to wake up or you need to sit up', then that can be hard."
But while some took the intrusion badly, others knew the patrol teams and welcomed a friendly face and the reminder that it was time for breakfast at the City Mission.
Auckland Council patrollers talk to rough sleepers in a makeshift shelter. Photo: RNZ / Finn Blackwell
Heinrich said Aucklanders generally welcomed the extra patrols - with more teams that hit the streets at seven in the morning.
"Obviously, there's more of us out on the beat," he said.
"We work until ten o'clock at night so that is a difference, I think we used to stop at six o'clock in the evening, and then we'd only have one team that's maybe working until about 12 o'clock, and another comes on 11 o'clock, so there's more visibility and as a result of that visibility people feel safe."
The City Centre Community Safety Action Plan had made a difference, said Heinrich.
"It has made a difference, because it's something for us to focus on," he said.
"There's obviously a lot of things in the city safety plan that we basically do in our daily job, and we basically implemented in our patrols during the day."
While council patrols were already in place, last year's City Centre Community Safety Action plan provided $4 million of extra funding.
Patrol teams attended disturbances and worked alongside emergency services.
Patroller Casey Flavell-Campbell said the landscape had changed a lot since she joined seven months ago.
"It changes all the time, you know," she said.
"When I first started there was a lot of people sleeping rough, then we got most of them into housing so it minimised the people sleeping on the street, and then the next day, there could be twice as much more people sleeping on the streets."
Flavell-Campbell said the job was not without its challenges.
"What's challenging to me is seeing people with mental health issues on the street."
Auckland Council patrollers try to wake up a rough sleeper. Photo: RNZ / Finn Blackwell
Flavell-Campbell said building a relationship with street whānau made a big difference.
"It makes a huge difference you know, it makes them feel respected, we want to respect them, that's how you gain respect, you have to build that rapport, it just makes our mornings so much better."
Another patroller JR said he hoped to build a deeper relationship with those sleeping rough.
"I'd like to get more interactions with them, I want to get closer to them and to understand their situations."
Auckland Council Compliance manager Adrian Wilson said the Safety Action Plan work was now part of the day-to-day for staff.
"I think it's gone really well," he said.
"We were doing well before the first of July which is when we got the additional funding for the extra wardens that we put out there, so we were doing it with some of that mayoral funding that we had before, but it's really developed now into business as usual for us in the central city."
Council staff clocked up 2759 patrols in the six months to the end of 2024, working alongside police and patrols organised by the city centre business association, Heart of the City.
Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck said the plan was hard fought for.
"We've now got the cross agency approach that we were lobbying for for a long time, which is the increased police presence but also the support for people with mental health and addiction needs, people with housing needs."
"We've got that working now collectively, and that's a really positive thing as well."
She said more could be done.
"We believe that there still needs to be a stronger support around some of the social issues," said Beck.
"The reality is - it's a big improvement and there's more that can be done, and there's a network of people working hard to keep improvements happening."
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