The Front Door: Supporting Youth Homelessness Initiatives

The Front Door is an open space for rangatahi who are at risk of, or currently experiencing homelessness – or just in need of advice and support along the way. The space is run by charitable organisation, Kick Back Make Change with the goal of ensuring rangatahi can immediately access supports and services all in one place, including support to find housing. The Front Door has a full time youth worker and other partners, such as CADS and YouthLaw, popping into the space to provide support and services to young people that come through their doors.

Kick Back Make Change was started by Aaron Hendry, a long-time advocate for rangatahi. CAYAD has been connected with Aaron for a number of years, working with him to raise awareness about alcohol signage in Tāmaki Makaurau and also featuring him in our series Pūrākau for Change. When we heard about his plans to open The Front Door last year, we saw it as a great opportunity to partner with an innovative initiative aimed at supporting rangatahi.

CAYAD Tamaki Makaurau sits in the Community Wellbeing department at Auckland council, adjacent to the Regional Homelessness Lead. Together we approached the Waitematā Local Board to explore a collective action approach to supporting The Front Door. With CAYAD contributing 30K, Auckland Council was able to collectively contribute 60k to the The Front Door.

The Front Door was co-designed with a group of rangatahi that have lived experience of rough sleeping. The purpose of the hub is to provide a safe haven for rangatahi who, providing them with access to a range of wellbeing, financial, and housing related services. In time, the vision for the hub is that it offers a new approach to emergency housing with wrap around support from a range of specialist expertise including youth workers, AOD clinicians, therapists, peer support workers, and outreach workers.

CAYAD and the team supported Kick Back to develop their strategic priorities, direction, and theory of change for The Front Door.  We’ve acted as a sounding board and encouraged the development of the project through our strategic expertise, systems thinking, and quality advice functions to hone the purpose of the project. CAYAD has also supported the development of relationships within the sector with YouthLine, RainbowYouth, The Wellbeing Collective – Primary Care, and a range of other organisations that could contribute expertise to the project. CAYAD has deep roots into the sector which has been instrumental in developing those relationships.

The Front Door officially opened its doors in May 2024 at 307 Karangahape Road in Tamaki Makaurau. Patrick Gifford, the CAYAD manager attended the official launch to support, alongside community members, politicians and service providers.