Local Focus: Community comes together for the homeless in lockdown

While most local businesses have either gone home or trimmed down to essential services, the Whanganui Peoples Centre is busier under lockdown.

The centre's core business is advocacy, support and advice for low-income earners and beneficiaries assisting with appointments and navigating their way through various agencies.

While the Ministry of Social Development has relaxed its processes during the lockdown, new challenges have sprung up, such as finding somewhere to live for prisoners just released by the courts and the Parole Board.

"As the lockdown happened and it became apparent what services weren't available and what was available," centre manager Sharon Semple said. "We're all navigating our way through that process at the moment. There are so many faculties within different agencies and police, MSD, probations and the council."

The centre manages relationships with Whanganui's homeless people for the council, including finding them somewhere to lockdown.

"All the homeless people were offered houses for the lockdown period," Semple said. "A few of them chose not to have housing - that's their lifestyle, they don't want to be in houses."

Adding to the challenge is the surprising number of homeless people arriving in Whanganui over the past three weeks. And with the rental market also in lockdown, the centre is struggling to find them shelter. But after reaching out to the business community, a solution was found - a motel bought by an investor on the eve of the lockdown.

"We settled on the motel and the lockdown started," Property investor Belinda Isla said. "So we essentially had an empty motel and a huge mortgage."

Isla and her husband have bought a number of properties in Whanganui, the Raglan couple recognising the need for social housing in the region. The motel was earmarked for conversion to permanent accommodation.

"We got in touch with Andrew and Sharon [at the centre] and we've been working with them to provide much-needed housing. Now more than ever people are going to be vulnerable. We are so pleased to be able to provide for that," she said.

But as Semple points out, it isn't the end of the struggle.

"As families isolate together, that tension builds up in the house and people move out into their cars making them essentially homeless."

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