20    
  Spring/Summer 2026
INVISIBLE 
KNOWLEDGE:  
HOMELESS IN OUR OWN HOME
Relations in 
Aotearoa speak 
to gaps in data 
visibility, reflected 
across nations
By Bryan Hansen
DATA & VISIBILITY
I
t was the middle of winter. A survivor of 
domestic violence prepared to spend 
the night in her car with her infant 
child. As the air got colder, she faced 
an impossible decision: stay in the car and 
pray that her child would survive the night, 
or return home to her abuser.
She went back. 
Mainstream data would have missed her 
entirely. She was homeless one moment, 
housed in the next, but the system never 
registered either. 
This is the story that associate professor 
Shiloh Groot, a descendant of the Te 
Arawa Nation in Aotearoa (New Zealand) 
and a Takata-pui (queer) researcher, 
returns to when explaining why official 
homelessness counts fall so far short of 
reality, especially for Indigenous women. 
Across Aotearoa, much like in Canada, 
official homelessness counts rely primarily 
on shelter use and point-in-time surveys – 
tools designed around visible, street-level 
homelessness. They were not built to 
document the realities of people moving 
between homes, staying with wha-nau (rela-
tives) or living in overcrowded conditions 
that never register as a housing crisis.
For Groot, the problem begins with the 
definition itself: “How can we be homeless 
Indigenous researchers and facility staff 
gather to commemorate the launch 
of a report for a Kaupapa Ma-ori-led 
transitional housing facility in Auckland: 
a service run according to Indigenous 
principles that provide pathways to 
healing and support for anyone who 
identifies as a woman. The design 
begins with community knowledge, not 
institutional convenience.

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