Orange Sky Aotearoa operations manager Eddie Uini and Hamilton Christian Nightshelter manager Joanne Turner. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
Orange Sky Aotearoa operations manager Eddie Uini and Hamilton Christian Nightshelter manager Joanne Turner. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
Non-profit charity organisation Orange Sky is on a mission to make free mobile shower and laundry services available to the homeless throughout New Zealand, including the Waikato.
Founded in Australia in 2014, the organisation has 33 vans available across Australia and three in New Zealand. While the two vans in Auckland and one in Wellington are working at full capacity, the team is touring the country to find out where else their shower and laundry vans are needed. Stop one on their trip was Hamilton.
Orange Sky Aotearoa partnerships manager Katie Hart says the locations of the road trip were identified based on a needs analysis that looked at rates of homelessness per territorial authority, research into the availability and accessibility of similar health hygiene services, and consultation with other support services in each location.
"Bigger cities tend to have more homelessness, [so] on paper, the numbers for Hamilton show a demand [for our services]," she says.
According to 2018 Census data, over 41,000 Kiwis are experiencing homelessness, including people without shelter and people living in temporary or shared accommodation or uninhabitable housing.
Hart says those experiencing homelessness would include more than people living on the streets. "That underinflates the numbers. It's also people crashing on friends' couches and people living in their cars."
Each Orange Sky van that operates in New Zealand features two washing machines and two dryers, including washing powder, as well as a shower with personal care products.
Once a service has been established in an area, the team is building a routine shift at the same locations at the same time every week.
"We make sure we partner with other service providers like foodbanks or night shelters, and go to locations where a lot of the people in need are anyway," Hart says.
The Orange Sky shower and laundry vans have two washing machines and dryers and a shower in the back. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
The organisation is funded through public and community donations as well as businesses including insurance company QBE and poverty relief organisation Hugo Charitable Trust. The shifts are 100 per cent volunteer run.
Orange Sky Aotearoa operations manager Eddie Uini says Hamilton was suggested as a location on the trip by the Salvation Army. "Sadly, Hamilton was one of the first locations we knew we had to visit as part of the trip. It was a no-brainer, easy to identify [as a location of need]."
Coming to Hamilton a week ago, Hart and Uini parked up the van at the Hamilton Christian Nightshelter. Manager Joanne Turner says "unfortunately" there was a need for a van like this in Hamilton and she was "stoked" with the concept.
"It's an amazing resource ... especially for people living on the streets. Being clean and having their clothes washed is the first step [towards] rebuilding their mana and self-esteem," Turner says.
People staying at the Nightshelter can wash their clothes and have a shower at the facilities, but she says there were still many people living on the streets in Hamilton because the night shelter doesn't have the capacity to take everybody in.
"The hardest part of our job is to turn people away. How do you decide this person is allowed in and that person isn't? We have to turn away between 40 and 60 people a month."
If Orange Sky were to launch one of their vans in Hamilton, Turner says she would at least be able to tell them where they can take a shower and where to wash their clothes.
Hart adds: "We wish we didn't have to [run the vans], ideally you want to put yourself out of business."
Since launching in New Zealand in 2018, Orange Sky has completed more than 10,372 loads of washing, provided 6642 warm showers, and participated in more than 16,054 hours of genuine, non-judgmental conversation with communities.
