Kent Johns: 'I slept rough for one night - here's what I learned'

I wanted to talk about the Big Sleepout.

This is an annual event which is hosted by LifeWise and the Merge Cafe, doing some great work for those people in the Auckland area experiencing homelessness.

So the Big Sleepout happened in late June.

About 70 of us, myself included, slip rough for one night to raise money and to raise some awareness and kōrero around people experiencing homelessness and what is it that we can do more of to help? Because it's a real big problem.

It's a major concern.

And this was one statistic that I was not aware of.

So within the greater Auckland area, they have a mechanism in place where they can actually do their best to count the number of people who are sleeping rough and experiencing homelessness.

There's a register.

And it oscillates.

It's around 600 to 700 people at the moment.

It was as high as 950 earlier this year.

But as was pointed out to me, what this doesn't take into account is people that are bouncing around from abode to abode.

They don't have a fixed place to stay.

It might be we have people sleeping in cars and people Others are not aware that people are sleeping rough.

We heard from Joe Damon recently on Take It From Us.

He was sleeping in his car, the comedian, and some of his friends did not even know, weren't even aware that that was what was happening for him.

So this is a bigger problem than the numbers would suggest.

But the people at LifeWise and Merge Cafe are doing a wonderful job to look after those of us who are experiencing homelessness.

It's a real...

It's a sad story, but it's one that we can potentially be optimistic about.

And we'll hear from Daryl Bishop real soon because he was someone that I got a chance to talk to.

Our guest speakers on the night were really inspiring.

We had four or five guest speakers, some who had been homeless for a while and had found their way to a better place where they're now helping others.

Others you could tell were still traumatized by their experiences from being homeless and from sleeping rough.

I mean, when we talk about people who are sleeping rough and are out there in the community, they're vulnerable people.