Kate Amory and Charlie Bleakley.

HOMELESSNESS is much more than Blanket Man, says Kate Amory.

"Whenever I talk to a Wellington resident about homelessness, without fail, Blanket Man is mentioned," says Amory, a documentary maker and student at the Wellington School of Medicine.

"While the cult status he has achieved is intriguing, homelessness is much more than that. We are concerned that the public focus on a core group of ‘streeties’ diverts attention from the real issues that underlie homelessness – poverty and the lack of affordable housing."

Amory wants the definition expanded to include those not usually recognised as homeless in New Zealand.

The 2001 New Zealand census counted 822 people living in makeshift dwellings, 36 in night shelters, and three rough sleepers throughout the country. Amory describes the figures as "clearly ridiculous".

"Victoria, a state of Australia with roughly the same population as New Zealand, had 20,000 people homeless on Census night 2001. If we counted homelessness in a meaningful way in New Zealand, I think we would be surprised at how close to that number we would be."

With Charlie Bleakley as director, she’s filming a documentary under the working title Beyond Blanket Man: Understanding Homelessness, to dispel the myths that surround homelessness.

"The people we see sleeping rough are homeless. But they are just a fraction of the homeless population. Homelessness is largely hidden – in night shelters, refuges, hostels, cars, caravans, and on the couches of friends and family. It affects women and children escaping domestic violence, young people, families, the elderly, couples, single men and single women."

There is no official definition for homelessness in New Zealand. This makes it difficult to quantify the problem, and difficult to develop useful policy.

The widely accepted definition of homelessness in Australia is the ‘cultural’ definition, in three categories.

Primary homelessness includes all people without conventional accommodation, such as people living on the streets, sleeping in parks, squatting in derelict buildings, or using cars for temporary shelter.

Secondary homelessness is people living in temporary accommodation, including hostels, night shelters, and refuges. It also includes those living temporarily with other households because they have no accommodation of their own.

Tertiary homelessness is people who live in hostels or boarding houses on a medium to long-term basis.

Amory says this definition has allowed homelessness to be counted through the Australian Census. In 2001, the number of homeless people in Australia was almost 100,000.

The Wellington City Council’s Homelessness Strategy defined homelessness using this model.

Amory and Bleakley hope their documentary fuels a debate around using this definition to describe homelessness in New Zealand.

"The cultural definition forces people to think about homelessness in a broader, more realistic sense – that homelessness is not just the classic image of the old alcoholic man sleeping under a bridge," says Amory.