Auckland Council's Youth Advisory Panel says young people in the city are grappling with the reality they may never own a home. Photo: Tom Taylor / RNZ
Representatives from diverse communities across Auckland have spoken with the city's council this morning, presenting the governing body with their strategic priorities for the future.
Youth, seniors, Pacific, rainbow, ethnic, and disabled peoples advisory panels addressed the governing body with their strategic priorities for the future at a Planning, Environment and Parks committee meeting on Thursday morning.
A common theme from the groups was calling on council to improve the accessibility of housing in Auckland, with the Youth Advisory Panel raising concerns around home ownership and climate resilience.
Auckland Council's Youth Advisory Panel said young people in the city were grappling with the reality they may never own a home.
Panel co-chair Sanat Singh said they wanted to inform the governing body of the housing challenges facing young people in Auckland.
"It's projected that we're never going to be in home ownership," he said.
"So, what does a reality look like for young Aucklanders who still want to stay in the city? We want to be able to deliver those experiences and that insight to you."
The panel's other co-chair Vira Parky said housing was not even originally included in their strategic priorities.
"We all thought it was completely unreasonable that we would be able to have an influence over the next three years," she said.
Parky said it was one of the panels lead officers that suggested housing as a priority.
"That's a really strong indication for how young Aucklanders feel about housing at the moment," she said.
The Rainbow Advisory panel was another group to bring up housing in their address.
Co-chair Josh Martin wanted council to have strong conversations around housing for rainbow youth, including the organisation of a rainbow communities housing forum.
"There's quite a lot of homelessness going around at the moment," Martin said.
There was a large portion of the homeless population that came from the rainbow community, he said.
"I don't know how to fix homelessness for rainbow people, but what I do know is that we need to do it together," he said.
After the advisory panels had finished presenting, councillor Chris Darby told the governing body they needed to listen and take on the messages and advice delivered to them by the groups.
"We don't listen to the advisory panels as we should be doing, I don't think we give them enough weight.
"I think we should be identifying those [strategic priorities] when we think about making our next decisions on various things."