The Heretaunga St entrance to The Rotten Apple Backpackers where 12 support service clients - including prisoners on probation - have been housed for ten months. Photo / Warren Buckland
The Heretaunga St entrance to The Rotten Apple Backpackers where 12 support service clients - including prisoners on probation - have been housed for ten months. Photo / Warren Buckland
A support service is searching for a new home for 12 clients - including prisoners on probation - after a dispute with the Heretaunga St backpackers they have been living in.
Levi Hetherington and Esther Peters of RRR Organisations have been trespassed from Rotten Apple Backpackers in Hastings over thedispute, but are yet to leave.
RRR Organisations helps people who have been in prison, or through rehabilitation, or otherwise have trouble fitting in with society.
RRR Organisations strives to find its clients jobs, or transport and eventually reunite them with whānau.
The pair and 12 clients have been staying at the Rotten Apple Backpackers after a verbal arrangement was made in March 2021 with owners Bailey and Heard Ltd.
Rotten Apple had closed to travellers after the Covid-19 lockdown, and New Zealand's travel borders were closed.
However, the two parties have since disputed the deal, with Bailey and Heard also wanting to charge a new rent rate that RRR Organisations says it can't afford.
The dispute now involves lawyers, and Hetherington and Peters have been trespassed from the Rotten Apple premises.
They were issued a notice on June 2 giving them until June 12 to get off the premises, but the pair have remained while trying to arrange new accommodation.
The end result is a stand-off with the owners, who are empathetic to the clients' needs, but aren't ruling out further legal action.
Department of Corrections is aware of an accommodation dispute involving ex-prisoners and is closely monitoring the matter.
A lawyer representing Bailey and Heard, Phillip Ross of Cathedral Lane Law, said that the owners were mindful of the needs of the RRR Organisations clients, and would not be "making it difficult for people that are caught up in this through no fault of their own".
RRR Organisations argue they had a verbal short-term lease and they have not been given appropriate notice to organise alternative accommodation for them and all their clients.
Ross said his client's position was that there never was any kind of lease agreement with RRR Organisations.
The arrangement between Bailey and Heard and RRR began on a trial basis in March 2021, and the organisation moved into the Rotten Apple premises on Heretaunga St in August 2021.
Hetherington and Peters say the agreement broke down earlier this year when they refused to sign an agreement charging higher rent for their clients.
He said they are still looking for accommodation for themselves and their 12 current clients.
"We have a couple of houses already that have been given to us, which are nearby to our other houses."
However, the accommodation is suitable for Stage 2 of RRR Organisations' programme.
The first part of the programme involved clients living together in one place before living independently in their own accommodation.
He and Peters also wanted to stay with their "brothers".
"RRR Programme is not closing down at all – if anything it has made us more stronger within ourselves. Our accommodation is changing ... not our programme."
Peters said they would have already left The Rotten Apple but they needed more time.
Ross said he and his clients were going to discuss what to do next and will likely take some sort of action.
However, the Rotten Apple owners do not want to make things difficult for the 12 clients.
"It's understood that their clients are in a difficult position and so my clients are not looking at making it difficult for people that are caught up in this through no fault of their own."
Ross confirmed the trespass notice has been issued and remained valid although he and his clients understood the police had not yet gotten involved as they viewed it as a civil dispute.
Coralea Easther, Department of Corrections operations director, Lower North, said a small number of people under their management currently reside with RRR Organisations in Hastings.
However, RRR Organisations was not a contracted service provider that the Department of Corrections used to provide accommodation and reintegration support.
She said that if a person under their management decides they do want to live with RRR Organisations, then it is decided on a case-by-case basis in line with their "extensive and robust" standard address suitability assessment.
She said they were aware of the dispute between RRR Organisations and the property owner, and were closely monitoring the matter.
