KEY POINTS:
A Muslim charity that provides relief after natural disasters throughout the Third World has delivered food and blankets to some of New Zealand's poor in a Mangere boarding house.
London-based Humanity First International delivered two carloads of supplies to Kiwiana Lodge in Bicknell Rd yesterday, after media reports that whole families were living in small single rooms, with blocked-up shared toilets and rat-infested rubbish.
Tenants such as beneficiaries Junior and Rangimarie Leato, who have lived there for five months with their now 10-month-old baby, welcomed the donation. "We've been on the waiting list for Housing New Zealand since we came here," they said.
After months without contact, the agency rang them this week and is now looking for a house for them.
Brian Rolleston, 23, will receive one of the blankets after arriving at the lodge without one. He said Housing NZ's Otahuhu branch referred him to the lodge last Friday after his family's house burned down in Manurewa at Easter.
Lodge manager Aroha Thompson said the lodge supplied beds but no bedding or other furniture, as people often preferred their own blankets.
Humanity First's Fijian-born local leaders, Remuera dental specialist Dr Mohammed Shorab and Automobile Association executive Bashir Khan, visited the lodge last weekend after Dr Shorab's wife saw a TV item about families needing blankets and food.
"There was mention that people do turn up who haven't had food. That is a primary basic need," Dr Shorab said.
"Apparently someone turned up without a blanket, so we brought some blankets too."
Ms Thompson's partner, Barney Walker, thanked Dr Shorab for the gifts at a small ceremony with some of the lodge's 34 tenants.
"Here's a man not even from this country who has come to help us - someone with positive thinking instead of negative thinking," he said.
Ms Thompson said the media publicity had been good because Housing NZ had suddenly "come to the party".
"We had three babies here and there is another mother waiting to have a baby," she said.
One mother and baby have been housed already in the past few days.
Another couple, Annemarie Clarke and Sili Olo, with 5-month-old baby Skye, accepted a Housing NZ house in Mangere yesterday after three months in the lodge.
"I came from my parents' house. I chose to come here to get some space, so I can be an independent person," Ms Clarke said. Mr Olo, an unemployed factory worker, was already there.
The family live in one small room and share a bathroom and kitchen with other tenants. One men's toilet was blocked when the Listener visited last month, but has been repaired. The lodge charges $130 a week for a single room and $190 for a double.
"I don't see anything really bad about this place other than that it's not good for kids," Ms Clarke said.
She said she applied to Housing NZ when she was six months pregnant and kept in touch with the agency after moving to the lodge, but they did not offer a house until this week.
"I think it's only because of the [news] story they are starting to move. They want all families with little ones out of here," she said.
Housing Minister Maryan Street has called a meeting of central and local government agencies in Manukau today to look at the city's need for more emergency housing.
The South Auckland waiting list for state housing is 968, up from 733 last year.
HUMANITY FIRST INTERNATIONAL
* Founded in 1994 by Ahmadiyya Muslims, a small sect that believes that an Indian man called Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) was the Messiah.
* Provided aid after earthquakes in Turkey, Pakistan, Japan and Iran, floods in Africa and Latin America, storms and tsunamis in the US, Indonesia and Bangladesh, and conflicts in Eastern Europe.
* NZ branch run by Ahmadiyya volunteers.
* Ahmadiyya movement has about 240 NZ followers, mainly migrants from Fiji, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
