As Rotorua grapples with the future of its emergency housing, the city's schools have been coping with the complex needs of children living in motels.
Since the pandemic, schools near Fenton Street had taken in children living in transient accommodation.
And while schools tried to support their tamariki, often they did not have all the information necessary to do so.
One Rotorua primary school principal said emergency accommodation was causing instability in his city and there had to be an end point somewhere.
Malfroy School principal Nicky Brell said his school had a roll of 300.
About 23 of those children lived in emergency housing although the number could fluctuate, he said.
"We don't know every child that's in emergency housing because their circumstances could change from one week to the next, and unless they come in and tell us we wouldn't know."
Support given to schools by various government departments had evolved as the situation in Rotorua developed, Brell said.
Nicky Brell said 23 of Malfroy School's 300 students were living in emergency accommodation, although that number could fluctuate. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The Ministry of Education funded vans to collect students from their emergency housing in the morning and take them back at the end of the day.
A spokesperson said this began last year with about 50 students and transport had been provided for about 160 students at its peak.
"Without that resource, we probably would not have achieved the attendance of as many kids as we would have liked," Brell said.
However, he was concerned for children who had to move from one school to another as their accommodation circumstances changed - sometimes at a moment's notice.
"In our cluster here, we have three high schools in our immediate area, one intermediate down the road, and a number of neighbouring primary schools, so it's a good area to establish yourself.
"For the kiddies who are in emergency housing, it's hard to determine their future," Brell said.
Down the road, Rotorua Intermediate has a roll of about 700 students.
The school knows of 32 students living in emergency housing but said the number could be higher.
Learning support coordinator Dean Henderson said part of the difficulty schools faced was a lack of knowledge about students' backgrounds.
"Fenton St, where all the [motels] are used for emergency accommodation, is on our back doorstep, so we don't know what we're getting.
"Often, students will turn up and they're not from another school within Rotorua, so we're ringing schools in Napier, we're ringing schools in Tauranga, we're ringing schools in Auckland to try and find out what these students' needs are and a little bit more about their background.
"We're basically being detectives trying to find out how we can support these students best."
Henderson said that as students in emergency or transitional housing moved from primary to intermediate, they became more aware of differences in their home lives compared to their classmates.
"These are teenage students who are basically trapped in hotel rooms, so they look around to find peers in the same situation.
"They're in the middle of the town, they band together, and sometimes the temptation to go into town and get up to no good is too much for some of them."
Learning support coordinator Dean Henderson said part of the problem was the school's lack of information about those students living in emergency accommodation. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Across the road from Rotorua Intermediate, and just a kilometre from Malfroy School, a new Kāinga Ora development was in the works.
When completed, it would provide 37 new homes for people in need.
But the nearby schools did not know how many extra children that would bring into the area, or what kind of pressure it would place on their school rolls.
Kāinga Ora's regional director in Bay of Plenty, Roxanne Cribb, said the agency was in regular contact with principals of schools near new homes.
The agency also informed the Ministry of Education how many homes would be built and when they were likely to have school-age children living in them, she said.
Large developments like the one near Rotorua Intermediate would be home to children of all ages, and early and ongoing conversations would ensure their education needs could be met, Cribb said.
A Kāinga Ora development near Rotorua Intermediate. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Ministry of Social Development [MSD] regional commissioner Mike Bryant said Rotorua had a declining number of whānau in emergency housing.
The best way for schools to learn more about the children starting at their schools was to talk to whānau when they enrolled and discuss their circumstances, he said.
The MSD was happy to talk with schools but could not share personal information about whānau for privacy reasons, he said.
"The nature of emergency housing is such that it is an emergency situation - families become homeless, often because their rental has come to an end.
"Wherever possible we seek to accommodate them close to their children's existing schooling.
"Families may not always wish to inform a school that they are in emergency accommodation when they first arrive. That is their decision."
The MSD linked families with children in emergency housing to intensive case managers and contracted navigators to help them stay connected to their community, health and education services, and other necessary agencies, Bryant said.
