Homeless woman who died needed a 'home and wrap-around care, not rejection'

The grieving mother of a homeless woman who died in Christchurch believes controversial move on orders would make survival harder for people on the street by pushing them to society's margins.

Caitlin McDonald survived less than two years rough sleeping in Christchurch, chronicling her descent into homelessness in hundreds of YouTube videos filmed on her phone.

She slept in a graveyard, a rough Addington reserve and bedded down on bark chips outside the Town Hall before her death on a St Albans flat couch in May 2025.

The government's Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill would give police the power to order rough sleepers, beggars or people behaving in a threatening or intimidating way from public places for up to 24 hours.

On Tuesday Wendy Proffitt will tell Parliament's justice committee that New Zealanders must not avert their eyes from the homeless.

While her daughter died of natural causes at the age of 47, Proffitt said she could have met a violent end.

"My daughter would have died a quicker and nastier death homeless had the 'move-on orders' been in place then. She was already 'moved on' to more dangerous places," she said in a written submission.

"My daughter survived less than two years homeless - dying at half the age of both her grandmothers."

Proffitt said a 2016 kidney transplant gave her daughter the gift of life but homelessness snuffed it out.

She believed her death told a story of multi-agency failure and was convinced she would still be alive if the government had not tightened the eligibility criteria for emergency housing in 2024.

"This is one documented case of a pathway to homelessness, her death entirely preventable but inevitable given the failures of those with responsibilities and a duty of care," Proffitt said.

"She needed a warm, dry, secure home and wrap-around care, not rejection."

A year to the day before she died, McDonald posted a video called "Park rangers say No" - a polite council request to abandon her Abberley Park camp.

"It's not that they were horrible, this is a public park, it's run by city council, it's not somewhere for sleeping," she tells the camera.

"Where do people go? If you're moved on from everywhere, there is nowhere to be."

The clip is among more than 460 YouTube videos viewed by RNZ that show the threads of a life unravelling.

Twice evicted from flats, McDonald plunged down a sink hole of hospital admissions, police welfare checks, suicide attempts, threats, a restraining order, arrests and charges.

She spent her first night on the street when she was discharged from Christchurch Hospital's emergency department and slept at a bus stop in her pyjamas in November 2023.

McDonald bounced from emergency housing motels to backpackers and back again, moving 14 times in 19 weeks.

"It's not about not trying hard enough or looking in the right places, it's maths. There are too few beds and too many people who need them," she tells the camera.

McDonald was on a supported living benefit because of her health and given an A20 priority rating by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), putting her at the top of the social housing register.

RNZ's Official Information Act request for further details about McDonald's entitlements and housing support was refused by MSD for privacy reasons.

Proffitt said legislation to move rough sleepers "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" contradicted a March Audit Office report calling for a joined-up government response to reducing homelessness and housing insecurity.

She urged the government to better support rough sleepers with police intervention to help people into homes rather than push them aside.

"The scourge of homelessness can and must be addressed. There are solutions right now by working together, above all listening to those who know," she said.

On Tuesday, Police Association president Steve Watts told the committee the proposed legislation addressed the symptoms of rough sleeping rather than the cause.

"The bill risks placing police in a role of managing the visible effects of homelessness, addiction, mental health issues, poverty and youth vulnerability, rather than addressing the underlying causes," he said.

"Our primary concern is that police will be expected to repeatedly relocate vulnerable people without the resources, services, or legal guidance needed to achieve lasting outcomes."

Watts said officers already had powers to deal with disorderly or offensive behaviour, assault and obstruction, property damage and vandalism.

On Thursday, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Morning Report the orders would give police an extra tool for dealing with behaviour that was not covered by existing legislation.

"If you're lying in a sleeping bag on the ground, on a bench or in a doorway, that is currently not covered by any offence. Putting up a structure or a makeshift dwelling, such as a tent or a cardboard box on Queen Street is not covered currently, so these are the things we're trying to achieve," he said.

The government wanted people to feel safe and welcome in city CDBs, Goldsmith said.

"There are lots of people who don't want to see this and they constantly mischaracterise what we're doing as if it is our only response to homelessness, which of course it isn't," he said.

"There are many, many things we are doing as a government to help those who are in need."

The government was spending an extra $14.5 million over the next year to continue homelessness outreach and support services in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, alongside 300 additional Housing First social homes.

Since September 2025, 674 households that had been sleeping rough had moved into stable housing and 177 people had joined a transitional housing pilot in Auckland and Hamilton.

The latest Homelessness Insights Report from March found an estimated 4965 people (1308 Māori) were living without shelter in New Zealand.

"Data available from around the country indicates that the number of people living without shelter may have begun to stabilise, with some large and small centres beginning to see a decrease. However, council staff from most of the areas we engaged with reported increasing numbers of people living without shelter over the past six months," the report said.

On Friday, the Coalition to End Women's Homelessness will tell the Justice Committee that move on orders shift people around rather than reduce homelessness.

"Rather than addressing the structural causes of homelessness, it criminalises those living with the consequences of systemic housing failure. It prioritises enforcement over care, displacement over housing, and punishment over prevention," the coalition said in a written submission.

"Housing is a human right. Women, children and whānau experiencing homelessness need safe homes, culturally responsive support and opportunities to thrive - not powers that simply move them from one public place to another."

The legislation risked increasing harm rather than improving safety for homeless women, the coalition said.

"Move-on orders risk making women's homelessness even less visible, potentially severing relationships with outreach workers, reducing access to support, increasing isolation and forcing women into more dangerous situations," it said.

Christchurch Methodist Mission executive director Jill Hawkey, who is also a coalition member, told RNZ women represent about 50 percent of New Zealand's homeless population compared to an average of 22 percent in other OECD countries.

"Women who end up on the streets are incredibly vulnerable. Women will do anything they can to stay safe. They'll go and stay with people who may be unsuitable or they'll go to boarding houses that certainly aren't suitable. Often women get passed around from male to male, they're raped, they're sexually abused, drugs become part of their lives. It's a really, really tough life," she said.

Hawkey said outreach workers found two women over the age of 70 living on the street in Christchurch last year, an "absolutely horrendous" discovery that pointed to a rental affordability crisis for retirees.

"Nobody should be living on the streets. Nobody should be homeless in this country. Everybody has a right to shelter and everybody has a right to a home," she said.