"I was online every day and night searching Trade Me properties and rentals.com, to try and find a place."
She said she has excellent references, never missed rent payments and always passed house inspections. She doesn't smoke or drink, works up to 30 hours a week in a youth addiction centre, and is studying full-time for another qualification in the field.
With little option, she moved in to her mother's two-bedroom rental house. But now her mother could face eviction as she was in breach of the rental agreement by having them there.
A Child Youth and Family (CYF) social worker said her sisters' children would be taken off her, and possibly split, if they did not find a home.
She has made 27 unsuccessful applications to rent privately.
"The housing crisis is real.
"I am 23, Maori with five kids and people assume the worst. Little do they know what kind of person I am, how big my heart is and how much I help others or how beautiful my children are."
She has turned down the offer of a motel room from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and also temporary accommodation at Pukemokimoki Marae in Napier with her own two children.
She wanted to keep the five children together.
Under pressure from a social worker she has played her last card, asking an aunt for a rental in Flaxmere. Her aunt has given another family notice so she can help out her niece.
While there is hope two months away she remains desperate to find a house, to avoid her mother becoming homeless and the children split up.
"I have no more tears left - I have cried myself to sleep too many times."
She said staff at Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri's Hastings office were the only ones to work alongside her, confirming she was on the radar of government agencies, including being on the MSD's emergency housing list.
"It throws into sharp relief how badly the system, and the safety-net it is supposed to provide, is now failing our most vulnerable," Ms Whaitiri said.
"This is a woman who is working, studying, pays her rent on time and keeps a clean, tidy household. She is raising two of her own children and her three placed in her care by CYF.
"She has communicated with government agencies and complies with their expectations.
"Yet, six months after first informing these agencies that she desperately needs housing assistance, she is faced with the choice of homelessness or having her whanau torn apart.
Ms Whaitiri said she had been failed by the Government.
"If this is what's happening in Hawke's Bay, can you imagine what else is going on out there around the country?"
MSD East Coast regional commissioner Annie Aranui said it was working closely with the woman to support her and her family in the search for suitable long-term accommodation.
She had a high priority on the social housing register and was working hard to find long-term accommodation.
"We are sure she would welcome contact from a local landlord with a suitable vacancy, and should she find a private rental that suits her needs we would be able to assist with upfront costs such as bond and rent in advance."
Ms Whaitiri has recently advocated for people turfed out of emergency motel accommodation because the motels were fully booked.
MSD would only book week by week, because emergency accommodation was supposed to be temporary, giving moteliers no option but to accept forward bookings.
Since Hawke's Bay Today wrote about the situation several moteliers providing emergency housing for MSD contacted Hawke's Bay Today, concerned they were cast in a poor light.
All declined to be named.
One said 90 per cent of MSD-referred people were good people in genuine need and he hated asking them to leave.
"It is not in my interest to kick them out. I'm a business person and they have been really good for us."
He said most will find accommodation with friends and family.
He estimated MSD was spending $30,000 at Napier motels and would save money if it bought houses instead.
"Thirty grand a week is $120,000 a month - that's a pretty good deposit on a house."
Another said he was distressed at the suffering of children.
"They go from pillar to post and motel to motel, simply because we are just trying to shuffle people around to look after our guests."
He said some MSD guests were problematic.
"One wrecked a brand-new stove, another put holes in the wall."
Leaine Jones made the decision 20 months ago to change the business model for Sylvan Lodge Motel and no longer take tourists.
"One of the things we could have done, which a lot of motels do, is have a mix of migrant workers, emergency housing-type situations as well as normal motel guests."
A trip to an Auckland motel with emergency housing put them off the idea.
"We arrived in the afternoon to spitting and a domestic dispute in full flow," she said.
"My husband is a truck driver and he starts early but they still talking and fighting at 4am in the room next door."
They signed a contract with Crasborn Group to house migrant RSE workers, whom she said were excellent guests.
"That is our core business. We are now in our second season and the off-season we have a variety of people come and go."
She said they made a conscious decision to help people in need of emergency housing but are sometimes "horrified at what that entails."
"We are try to keep people safe but have had some really unfortunate situations.
"These are people that are very vulnerable, whether it is mentally, emotionally, financially and sometimes all of those things."
Her experience is more than half displayed an entitlement to their accommodation.
"That they can just rock in there, no questions asked and they can stay and wreck the place.
"They can refuse to pay rent, they can steal all the stuff we have provided in good faith because they have nothing. That is the reality."
Some arrived intoxicated, many received several bail-check visits from and some had mental-health issues.
"Often they are from domestic violence situations and are hiding from people. They get found and all hell breaks loose.
"It is really, really difficult is to help this kind of scenario.
"We are trying to do help and we do have people here that are beneficiaries, but we will only take people case-by-case.
"I tell people we have a room but you need to fill in the application first and we will do a credit check. Then they become abusive. I've been called all sorts of things - things I've never been called in my life and I'm 52 years old.
"It has been an absolute eye-opener."
Desperation "rings alarm bells".
"It means they have used up friends and family in the past and have no options left available to them because of their behaviour."
She said a couple with a 2-year-old daughter had all their possessions in one suitcase.
"I went and bought them second-hand sheets and towels but they took everything like that. They didn't take the appliances - they were bolted down."
Last week MSD promised figures would be released this week for the number of Napier and Hastings people staying in emergency motel accommodation. When Hawke's Bay Today went to press on Friday afternoon they were not yet unavailable.
The January Trade Me Property Rental Index showed Hawke's Bay had the highest national increase in rent rises, up 12.5 per cent from January 2016.
