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Home / Northern Advocate

Our Hidden Homeless: Reader response to help Northland's homeless 'phenomenal'

Jenny Ling
By Jenny Ling
Multimedia Journalist·Northern Advocate·
4 Dec, 2020 04:00 PM3 mins to read

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Eric Monk [centre] was a recipient of a portacom thanks to Jane Beamsley and Rhonda Zielinski who are helping vulnerable Northlanders with a 'rent-to-bless' scheme. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Eric Monk [centre] was a recipient of a portacom thanks to Jane Beamsley and Rhonda Zielinski who are helping vulnerable Northlanders with a 'rent-to-bless' scheme. Photo / Michael Cunningham

The whānau trust at the heart of a movement to help Northland's homeless has been blown away by the response from Northern Advocate readers offering donations.

The Northern Advocate recently teamed up with Whakamanamai Whānau Trust, The Hits Northland and Solomon Group to furnish portable cabins provided to Northlanders with nowhere to call home.

The response to Our Hidden Homeless series, which aimed to highlight the issue of housing deprivation in the region, has been "phenomenal".

The goal was to fit out 10 portacoms with an equal number of quality beds, couches, chairs, bedside tables and dressing tables to transform the small buildings into homes.

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Donated items include more than 20 beds, 10 sets of drawers and bedside tables, four tables and chairs, two lazy boys, one fridge and lots of bedding.

Editor Rachel Ward said there have been lots of other offers from people who can't donate but would like to help, and an electrical firm had offered to carry out electrical work on the portacoms.

The offers are mostly from Northlanders, but have also come from South Auckland and as far away as Australia.

"The response has been phenomenal," Ward said.

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"I've been quite heartened by the fact people want to help and try and make life better for some of these people.

"They recognise there is an issue in our backyard. I'm proud of Northlanders and the way they've come forward."

Rhonda Zielinski, who runs the Whare to the Whenua scheme, which delivers portable cabins to whānau land, said the feedback she's had to the Hidden Homeless series has been "fantastic".

"It just shows that our community care about each other.

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"We've got very generous people.

"It's like one man's rubbish is another man's treasure and it's a good way to upcycle. We all have things we don't need, which we can pass on to others.

"The next 10 portacoms we give out we know we've got a bed for every single one."

Zielinski has also had an offer from a new company called Northland Cabins, which has donated a cabin to rent for one year.

The rent from the cabin will allow the trust to save up and buy another portacom.

Zielinski said she already has a kaumātua in mind who will benefit from the donation.

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He lives in a rural area near Kaikohe in a "dilapidated old house his social worker told me wasn't even fit for a rental," she said.

"But because he was homeless they let him live there."

The kaumātua has his own whenua, so the portacom will be located there, Zielinski said.

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