KEY POINTS:
Norman Griffin cooks his tea in a crockpot in his tiny room. It's the safest way, he reckons, after a fire ripped through the Sailors' Home on Auckland's waterfront eight months ago, destroying much of the communal living area on the second floor.
Since then there's been no power in the kitchen - no fridge, no hot water boiler, no oven. The residents, many of them elderly, cook on gas burners during the day but the kitchen closes at 6pm because of the lack of lighting.
When the Herald on Sunday visited last week, the Sailors' Home in Quay St was in a depressing state and the residents, now virtually camping, at a loss to know why insurance cover hadn't been used to fix the damage. But hours after the reporter and photographer visited, Haydn Ash, secretary of the home's board of trustees, phoned to say the Sailors' Home would soon be moving to apartments in Gore St. The board had done a deal to rent 30 self-contained, furnished apartments and they would take possession shortly before Christmas.
The news sent a ripple of alarm through the long-time residents, many of them living on the pension. Some of them doubt they will be able to afford the new apartments. Ash confirmed the rate would go up but would not say by how much. The cost for a one-bedroom apartment would be "well below the market rate" of about $280 to $300 a week, he said.
Residents at the Sailors' Home at present pay $126 a week for a room, with a shared bathroom down the hall. Casuals, visiting seamen and nautical students pay $30 a night.
Room 22 on the fifth floor of the Sailors' Home has been home to 74-year-old Norman Griffin for nearly 12 years. Griffin, a seaman for 25 years and a watersider for another 25, said the thought of moving was "scary". He and other permanent residents were unsure of their future at the home.
"I'm a bachelor. Unless I can get some assistance from Winz it will be pretty damn tough. It [the new apartments] will be nicer but I'm not sure if I will be able to afford it if they put the prices up. I might finish up under the Harbour Bridge or in a tent on the crossroads."
A Sailors' Home has been run as a charitable trust in Auckland since 1884. In 1972 the home moved from Sturdee St to its present site in Quay St. Now, 35 years later, the rundown building was made virtually uninhabitable by the fire in March. The residents' lounge is still boarded up and unusable. The coin-operated washing machine in the laundry, which has no lighting, still works but only with the help of a power lead run from the floor above. Bedroom doors were damaged when firemen bashed them down to check no one was trapped inside.
The home's manager, Eddie Harris, who walks with the aid of a walking frame, spends most of his day confined to a chair in his tiny wood-and-glass office. If a call comes in for a resident on the floors all Harris can do is take a message; the house intercom system no longer works.
When the fire broke out, Harris, who has lived at the home for 25 years, was in his room one level above. With the help of a fellow resident, he slid down a banister to reach a fire escape.
From Harris' office, signs of the fire damage are everywhere. While his space was cleaned of the smoke damage, the ceiling in the corridor outside is black with soot. The wooden walls are grimy, the public telephone doesn't work and nearby, a rough plywood wall blocks the blackened space which was once the residents' lounge and TV room. It was here the fire started, lit deliberately by a young temporary resident who was jailed for the offence. Now the room is a derelict, blackened shell. Exposed wiring hangs from the ceiling, broken windows are covered with plywood or plastic and a vinyl concertina dividing wall is now just strips of wire and framing. Through the grimy windows that survived, piles of glass lie on the concrete terrace. Beyond, the million-dollar view; to the left, the old ferry building and the Hilton Hotel, in front, the wharves; to the right, the harbour and gulf islands.
It is this view which makes the site valuable. Developers Bluewater plan to build a five-star 150-room hotel on the site, which includes the Seafarers' Centre in the same building, and the Altrans and Quay buildings next to the former Wharf Police Building.
Haydn Ash said the fire damage to the Sailors' Home proved too expensive to fix in the short-term. The deal to rent the 30 apartments took longer than expected but now that it had been signed, the fire insurance money would be used to furnish the new residents' lounge.
