The homelessness issue in this country– some 41,000 people are now considered homeless and Labour has called it a ‘state of emergency’.

What is the official definition of homelessness?

It’s people who are living in motels, boarding houses, in severely crowed homes, in cars or on the street.

And there are 41,000 of them.

And researchers at Otago University have looked at the homeless population and say more than half of those deemed to be homeless are working or studying, so the homeless situation is, in effect, the rise of the working poor in this country.

It is not, as we often tend to assume, purely the result of mental health illness, addiction and poor life choices.

It’s not unique to New Zealand, either. In Britain, the homelessness situation has spiked too. It’s a major political issue there as well, and most strategists say that to address homelessness, you have to address the housing crisis. They two are inextricably linked.

The biggest single cause of homelessness in Britain is triggered by the end of a private tenancy. A rental agreement ends, and the tenants simply have no where else to go. They can’t find a place to live or they can’t find a place they can afford to live in. And so suddenly families are home-sharing, or living in a boarding house. Or perhaps a garage, or a car.

And here, homelessness is becoming more visible. Sometimes, when I’m out running early in the morning, I pass cars or vans on the side of the road. There are sometimes three or four pairs of shoes outside the door. A small bag of rubbish tied up. Perhaps a dirty saucepan and a gas cooker. I use to think it was tourists, but I’ll sometimes see the same car day after day. Parked near a public toilet or a drinking fountain. They’re not tourists. They’re Kiwis with nowhere to live.

How did it get to this? Well, it's not rocket science, is it? We live in a country with a fast-growing population and too few houses. That pushes up the value of a home, and it pushes up rent too. And as our population growth rockets along, that leads to sluggish wage growth. So it’s getting more expensive to live here, but our wages aren't keeping pace with that growth.

What's the solution? We have to check immigration – plain and simple. In the past I've opposed this because immigration is of such huge importance to this small, isolated country and it still is -- but right now, at what cost?

It makes no sense to keep the door wide open when we have people who are in gainful employment but we can't house them. And we have students who are trying to improve their outcomes in life, but they don't have a roof over their heads.

It’s a short-term check, that’s all. Just until we can try and right the ship.

What's the saying? I think it was Albert Einstein.

He said the definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results"

Record immigration equates to homelessness and fuels our housing crisis.

Until we check that, there can be no other result.