Hastings house ‘best present’ for family after enduring 20 in a four-bedroom home

Fia and Fred Milo with Frances, 11, Elisha, 9, Mark, 7, and Anna, 4 - four of the family of eight children finally able to be in a permanent home after eight years of struggle street. Photo / Warren Buckland

Christmas presents come in wrappings, but the best one of all for Hastings couple Fia and Fred Milo and eight kids has no wrapping at all.

To Fia, the “angel” has finally landed, and their prayers have been answered, with a move into a new home a fortnight ago, just when they thought they would be spending Christmas in two single-bedroom motor camp cabins, with separate communal kitchen and bathroom.

It’s been three years of struggle for the family, who have been looking for a home since losing more secure accommodation after a landlord sold up.

As well as the cramped camp living, they’ve spent time in a four-bedroom home with two families, totalling 20 people - including 16 children - in three years of shifting, from Flaxmere to Omahu, to Havelock North, to Napier, then to the motor camp in Hastings.

Along the way came the tough decision to send the youngest, aged one, to family overseas because the camp was no place to be raising an infant in the circumstances.

The classic story of a family trapped in the housing crisis - or as it happens, two families - unfolded in tears of emotion as Fia spoke in Hastings on Monday, during the latest unveiling of new homes built by Government housing agency Kainga Ora.

There are 24 new homes at the development in suburban Mayfair, progressively built over the last 12 months on Jellicoe St properties which once accommodated 11 state homes.

Moving in on the same day two weeks ago was mum-of-six Paula Bennett, the two families having become neighbours and friends while in adjacent emergency housing in Omahu.

Mum-of-six Paula Bennett (second from right) with children Rylynn, 11, Savannah, 8, and Tyreese, 6, in a new home in time for Christmas. Photo / Warren Buckland

The most stressful time had been this year, Fia said, as she told of moving into the four-bedroom home with her brother-in-law and eight children, and then the Top 10 Holiday Park.

“We get squashed in there for one month, and it ended up we had to all WINZ (Work and Income) to get us emergency housing again, because we cannot live like too many people in a four-bedroom house,” she said. “Since then we moved to Top 10, and that’s how we get a call that we had a home.

“The day that the lady calls us... I just feel like screaming, I was in tears, the tears of joy because, getting our boys, to say you’ve got a home is just like, I don’t know how happy we were.

“I called my husband, I called everyone because everyone prayed for our family to get a home,” she said.

And she called the “lady” to say: “Thank you so much, it’s a very nice present for our family.”

“The day that we moved into the house I can see the joy of my kids, running around, not naughty but like excited, everyone going in each room,” she said. “The first night we slept it feels like… It’s an amazing feeling, it’s hard to explain.”

“It’s been three years, a struggle,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain, but moving around is not a good thing, especially for a mother. When we heard the voice, it was like an angel voice: ‘You’ve got a five-bedroom house’. I could not talk, because I was in tears. It’s a good feeling. Even my kids were in tears, and my husband, so happy that we got a home.

“It’s the best present we ever get, you can get a present wrapped, but this is the best one that we ever get.”

Kainga Ora said the homes have been allocated as they have been completed, with some of the residents moving off the housing register and out of motel units or other emergency accommodation.

Local MPs Meka Whaitiri and Anna Lorck both attended the ceremony, and similar celebrations are expected late next month or early February in Napier, with the first commissioning of homes among 24 on a site off Seddon Cr, Marewa.