Hunt on for a 3-4 bedroom home to use as shelter for the Napier homeless

Clive Square, a popular haunt for street dwellers with an outreach centre nearby. Now a move is on to find a suitable shelter before winter. Photo / Doug Laing

A new attempt is to be made to establish a short-term home-shelter for those living on the streets, in cars, on beaches and otherwise out in the open in Napier.

The move comes with a new trust being set up and looking for a suitable 3-4 bedroom house, and comes as a response to the deaths of two of the community in the last year, including Boy Taylor, allegedly murdered in Napier’s Emerson St shopping centre on December 18.

There have also been concerns about the activity of some of the community in and around Clive Square and other parts of both Napier and Hastings.

Napier city councillor and housing services advocate Maxine Boag, spokesperson for a group including Mayor Kirsten Wise and representatives of Whatever It Takes Trust (WITT), Napier Pilot City Trust, the Trinity Methodist Church, Te Kupenga Hauora Ahuriri, and Te Taiwhenua o Te Whanganui ā Orotu, says the preferred and most practical option initially is to secure a rental property within walking range of the CBD.

She says setting up an overnight shelter for four to five of Napier’s homeless (whānau pounamu) is the focus of a collective group of providers, organisations and individuals who are “keen to help make a meaningful difference to the lives of the most vulnerable members of our Napier community”.

“In less than 12 months, we have tragically lost two valued members of our whānau pounamu who were living on our streets, a poignant reminder of the urgent need for action,” she says.

“The loss of their potential and connection deeply impacts our community. This is an issue that is not going away and the group is concerned that under current Government policies on state housing provision by Kāinga Ora is only going to get worse.

“The number of homeless whānau in Napier continues to grow, and I feel there is more understanding and empathy in our city towards them than there was even a few years ago,” she says.

With winter approaching, the group is committed to ensuring no one else endures such hardship, and is forming a trust for the purpose.

“We acknowledge as individual organisations we do not have the resource or capacity to address homelessness,” Boag says. “However, as a collective and with the support of our Ahuriri / Napier community we are confident that we can make long-lasting positive change.”

The group will target finding a suitable three to four-bedroom house and funding to staff and maintain the facility.

A similar project, under the name Limitless Hope, was started in Napier a decade ago, with a campaign to raise funds for the relocation of a house that had been offered to the cause. It did not go ahead.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.