Honeylee Whakamoe says she knows how to look after a property and wants future landlords to know that too. Photo / Warren Buckland
Honeylee Whakamoe says she knows how to look after a property and wants future landlords to know that too. Photo / Warren Buckland
Moving back into emergency accommodation was Honeylee Whakamoe's "last resort", but that's exactly what she's done following months of unsuccessful applications to rental agencies around Hawke's Bay.
Whakamoe, from Hastings, moved into Hastings Top 10 Holiday Park on Wednesday and will be there until next Wednesday, October 27.
"It's small,claustrophobic, but it's liveable. We have to share a toilet and kitchen, because it's shared facilities," she said.
"This is not what I wanted, but I am staying positive. I will be here until Work and Income can find me another motel to stay.
"I'm grateful and the children are settling into a new routine, I wish it was a better outcome. It's a new environment, new routines and it's unsettling but that's expected."
Whakamoe and her five children had been happily living at a rental property in Flaxmere, until her landlord decided they needed the house with plans to refurbish it.
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The 34-year-old said her landlord gave her the required 90 days notice to vacate in June, and she'd been applying for rental properties since.
She vacated on October 20 and she's not found a home yet, despite nearly 30 applications for rental properties.
"I have excellent references, don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't have any animals. I do have tattoos, and piercing, but I take those out when I go for a viewing.
"But I do have five kids, and they probably think I am going to sit on my bum all day and let my kids run amok."
On Thursday Whakamoe told Hawke's Bay Today each time her application had been unsuccessful, and she received a response only a handful of those times.
"The responses were only that I had been unsuccessful.
"But I'm staying grateful for all the help and support from my journey."
The region's latest statistics of those assessed as eligible and now on a waiting list for a state home, from June, confirm just how dire the situation is for people like Whakamoe.
In the last five years the number of applicants on the housing register in Hastings District has skyrocketed, going up from 72 in June 2016, to 732 in June 2021.
In Napier that number has jumped from 87 in June 2016 to 768 in June 2021.
In Central Hawke's Bay District in June 2016 there were three applicants on the housing register, and in June 2021 there were 57.
It took Whakamoe months of living in emergency accommodation - two weeks at the Hastings Top 10 Holiday Park and then for four months at Magpie Motel - before she was able to get the rental she just moved out of, and she had no desire to return.
Previously she told Hawke's Bay Today that her entire family were in emergency accommodation already, so living with them was not an option.
But she's keeping her fingers crossed for a better outcome.
