Tauranga homeless advocates get new kitchen to feed the poor

Homeless advocate Tommy Wilson and Bay Venues' Justine Brennan inside the new kitchen at the Greerton Community Hall that will help feed the needy. Photo / George Novak

A deal struck between Tauranga's council and a trust that feeds the homeless will see hundreds more of the city's needy given free food.

It's a timely arrangement after a coroner's report into the death of a Bay of Plenty man highlighted that poverty and other factors like homelessness, unemployment and inability to access health services can contribute to death.

Frank Walters died from a simple heart attack, but his death is being described as a wake-up call by an experienced GP who says this should be a country where food, nutrition, housing and access to housing should be a right.

Te Tuinga Whanau Support Services Trust director Tommy Wilson said the coroner's finding proved that "poverty or pohara [poor] can kill you".

"It's sadly a true reflection of the growing gap between the haves and have nots and land that has enough for all of us, especially kai and land, and where a warm safe house should be the priority for any Government no matter what political pōtae they are wearing."

Wilson said it all started with good healthy kai. He said initiatives like feeding children in schools were a great start and he hoped it would be rolled out to every child and every homeless and poor family.

This week the trust had taken possession of a commercial kitchen purposely-built for the trust at the Greerton Hall by Bay Venues to produce 500 healthy meals a day for those in need.

Wilson said the trust currently operated its food service, called Happy Puku, out of a Te Puna marae but they had to frequently move elsewhere when there was a tangi or event at the marae.

Wilson said it was delivering up to 150 meals a day to those in the trust's care staying in emergency housing at the Greerton RSA's accommodation wing, and another 100 or so meals were being distributed by their staff to families directly.

The new deal will allow the trust to deliver the meals to the RSA easily as it is next door to the Greerton Community Hall.

Advocate for the homeless, Tommy Wilson, and Bay Venues' Justine Brennan inside the new kitchen at the Greerton Community Hall that will help feed the needy. Photo / George Novak

Bay Venues interim chief executive Justine Brennan said it recently had noise-complaint issues with some of the regular users of the hall and as a result, they had to stop some of the hireage.

She said Bay Venues, which is a council-controlled organisation, was approached by the trust to fit out the kitchen to a commercial standard in return for a long-term lease and the deal had worked out to be a win-win for both parties.

"We have had to restructure the types of activities in the hall because of this. The opportunity to support the trust makes so much sense as it allows us to help the community while also utilising the hall."

She said the arrangement also allowed others to still use the hall if need be.

She said it was hoped Bay Venues could find similar uses for its other 23 venues throughout the city.

Coroner Donna Llewell's finding on Frank Tipene Walters' death overnight on November 16 last year has just been released to the Bay of Plenty Times.

The finding said a toxicology report showed he died due to a sudden cardiac event. There was no alcohol or cannabis in his blood but there was a presence of a high-potency synthetic cannabinoid in his system.

While the 53-year-old died from heart disease with diabetes as an underlying condition, his GP, Dr Harry Pert, said in the coroner's finding unemployment, poverty, homelessness and difficulty accessing health services were also major contributors in his death.

Among other failures in social determinants, Pert described New Zealand's access to dental care as "hideously unacceptable" and "worse than third world".

Rotorua GP Harry Pert says New Zealand needs to do better when it comes to reducing poverty. Photo / Andrew Warner

In his report to the coroner, Pert said Walters had poor dentition which made it hard for him to have nutrition appropriate for his diabetes. The fact he hadn't been able to access dental services contributed to his poor diabetes control, Pert's report said.

The report noted Walters was often very motivated to improve his health but social challenges were overwhelming for him.

Pert's report noted, "social determinants of health are also becoming more significant and perhaps less recognised and recorded".

Speaking to the Bay of Plenty Times, Pert said he was seeing the impacts of poverty more than any other time in his 45-year medical career.

"We talk about problems with obesity, nutrition, diabetes and so on but we don't talk enough about why that is."

Pert said too many people could not afford healthy food.

"New Zealand is a country that can produce food like hardly any other in the world yet we are not able to feed our own population adequately and I think that needs a bit of soul-searching to understand why that is.

"Why is it cheaper to buy Coca-Cola than milk and why can't people buy fresh fruit and vegetables?

"It's all very well saying eat healthily but if you haven't got any teeth it's really hard. We have hideously unacceptable standards of dental care and access to dental care in New Zealand. It's worse than third world. It's completely unacceptable in a rich country like ours that people can't access basic dentistry properly."

Pert said housing was another factor.

"We can't house our population either, in a country that's got space and we grow building materials."

The Bay of Plenty Times talked to Walters' brother, Anthony Walters snr, who said his brother started well not long after his diabetes diagnosis in 2015 but "got a bit slack".

"He didn't know he was dying. He started off very well but not towards the end. A bit of it was because of his own personal doing and his diet because if he didn't feel like eating he wouldn't."