Local Focus: Busy times for Love Link

Transitional housing is now a major focus for Hawke's Bay charity Christian Love Link.

In its 30th year, the interdenominational group of volunteers supplies 12,000 household goods a year to those in need.

"We have a team of 40 volunteers putting in nearly 6000 hours every year to do this work," operations manager Ian Jones said.

"Every week we hear of people living in motels or whatever.

"When they do get a house they have got nothing to put in it - they'll have their clothes and a suitcase.

"Our truck can be full for delivery to one household, by the time we do the beds, the linen, the lounge furniture."

The charity has an established supply network but occasionally puts out a call for specific items.

Local MPs recently answered the call for blankets, which the charity collected from their offices.

"These blankets will be an absolute help because they are going into homes where you have children sleeping on the floor without adequate warmth and that affects their health."

Jones said thanks to donated materials from Laminex Group and Napier Pine, the Men's Shed builds beds for the charity.

"A lot of people are donating to us only a mattress.

"They change their mattress and don't change their base, so we ended up with a significant amount of mattresses."

Christian Love Link has an annual budget of about $40,000, dependent on fundraising.

The majority of the budget goes towards paying for the rent of its Onekawa depot which is running at maximum capacity.

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