Sandra Paterson: Homeless in paradise

I am ashamed to say that until a few weeks ago, I did not know that people like Leah, Jake and Rawhiri existed.

Who? Well, exactly. They are homeless people. And in my busy whirlwind of a world they were invisible.

I had been to the cafes and shops along the Tauranga harbourside many times without realising that later, when it was dark and quiet, people curled up in the doorways to escape the cold.

I didn't know that in the bushes by the tennis courts there were shelters made of cardboard. And I had sat in the library and not realised that the bearded man with the lovely grin who seemed to read most of the day had nowhere else to go.

Oh, I knew there were drunks in town. I'd see them sitting on the benches by the big ash tree and would walk past, not knowing what to say or do, and not giving it much thought, either.

I had seen people who were obviously homeless in Auckland and London and other big cities around the world, but not in the Bay of so-called Plenty, my slice of paradise.

So I was somewhat surprised when, in a chance conversation, I learned there was a whole community of homeless people here.

Two weeks ago on a Friday night I found myself buttering several loaves of bread and carrying large flasks of soup into a van and setting out to meet them.

In the front were Peter and Karen, a local couple in their late 30s. I have known them for a while but, like many salt-of-the-earth people, they were quiet and unassuming and did not go around trumpeting their good deeds.

When I learned of their work on the streets and said I'd like to write about it, they were shy and said not to use their surname.

As we drove downtown Karen scanned the streets for familiar faces. "Be prepared for anything to happen," she warned. "Sometimes they can be aggressive."

That night they weren't. In fact, I was touched by their warmth and gentle spirits.

Around midnight, when the temperature dropped and I was shivering, Jake - who had been telling me how he had lived on the streets for 32 years - fetched his spare jersey and draped it over my knees.

I asked him about the raw scabs on his hands. "White-tailed spider bites," he said. Who took him to hospital? Peter and Karen.

Later in the night a young woman turned up, her face shining despite the scars of a violent past. In her arms was a five-day-old baby - her ninth child, she told me. The others had been removed by social welfare, but she really wanted to keep this one.

Thanks to Peter and Karen she may be able to do so. They helped her to get off the streets in the last months of pregnancy and to find accommodation, and it was Karen who supported her through the long hours of labour.

"They help us lots, eh?" grinned Rawhiri, a tall young man in a baseball cap. He starts a drug and rehabilitation programme in a few weeks and credits Peter and Karen for inspiring him. "I'm ready to change my life now."

Homeless people do not need more money. Most of them are on some sort of benefit, most of which goes on alcohol. It keeps them warm, dulls the gnawing hunger and numbs whatever pain led them onto the streets in the first place.

"What they need is love, not a faceless handout," says Karen simply. "They need someone to get to know them and to believe in them. We tell them they have value and that they are worth more than this. You have to meet emotional and spiritual needs as well as physical."

I got home at 2am, in awe of people who give their lives for others so selflessly.

Karen and Peter live on a fairly small income and have four children of their own. (The eldest two, in their teens, look after the younger ones when their parents are out.) The work they do with the homeless is in their own time; and they pay for the bread and soup, and medicine when necessary, out of their own pockets.

They have big dreams of having enough financial support to work on the streets full time; and of setting up an overnight shelter and a family-based halfway house for those who really want to change.

In the meantime, though, as the nights get colder they need sleeping bags. And they would like the council workers and police - or whoever it is - to stop removing the blankets and belongings they find stashed in trees and bushes.

"It might not be pretty, having homeless people in your town, but these people are human and they deserve to be warm at night."

They are simple requests: sleeping bags, support from the local authorities, money to buy soup and bread; and a decent income so they can carry on the work they are so passionate about.

Volunteers like these are vital to society, yet as life gets faster and two-income lifestyles more common, fewer and fewer people are willing or able to give their time. Those who do deserve support and recognition.

* Sandra Paterson is a Mt Maunganui journalist.