Adopt A Streetie is the latest initiative from a Rotorua charity determined to help rough sleepers off city centre streets.
Currently in the planning stages, it would involve rough sleepers being matched with volunteer local hosts willing to offer free rent in exchange for their guests completing odd jobs.
The idea is the brainchild of Love Soup, the organisation behind Rotorua’s Village of Hope. The village shelters homeless people in sleeping pods set up in secret locations, but is being scaled back from original plans due to compliance issues.
The village started operating this month in response to concerns about homeless people sleeping on the Rotorua CBD’s streets.
Some of those sleeping rough were causing grief to local businesses, with reports of bad behaviour including drunkenness, drug-taking and public sex.
Love Soup’s Julie King said the Adopt A Streetie idea had been on her mind for a while and was a natural progression from the Village of Hope.
She said the streeties could be put into a home once they were ready.
King said they used coming together to eat and prepare food as a way of finding those who genuinely wanted to change and improve their lives.
The five people being housed in the village were now helping to prepare and cook the meals for other homeless at the weekend.
Love Soup provides between 25 and 30 meals every Saturday and Sunday night, as well as giving food for others to do breakfasts in the morning.
“I know people don’t want us feeding them but it is our way of bonding and coming together,” King said.
They had heard of similar hosting projects overseas where those given free rent repaid the favour by offering to do jobs and chores.
“If we plan it right, it can work.”
King said the sleeping pods idea “had not really panned out” on the large scale it had originally aimed for, because of compliance issues with Rotorua Lakes Council.
It was set up as an emergency response in a secret location on land near Rotorua, but the council advised Love Soup would face enforcement actions if it didn’t stop what it was doing and apply for consent.
King said the village was replacing some of the pods with caravans and campervans, which they believed would gain council approval more easily.
King said they would sell six of their eight pods – asking about $2500 each.
The pods are made from hard plastic and each has ventilation, insulation and sleeps two or three people side-by-side.
King said Love Soup set up the Village of Hope for those willing to abide by their rules and there were strict criteria and screening for those they allowed in.
The set-up was “working wonders” for the five people currently using it because they had somewhere warm, dry and safe to sleep.
Two were sleeping in pods and the other three in a donated campervan, caravan and a car.
Love Soup volunteers transported them to the two secret locations and supervised them from nearby before returning them to Rotorua in the morning.
King said the original long-term vision of having several pods on iwi land was no longer going to work.
“We still think the pods are amazing and they work really well. It’s just the iwi land has fallen through.”
Gaining compliance was also going to be too difficult, although King said once they had their caravans set up properly, she would invite the council to check on their operation in case it needed consent.
Jean-Paul Gaston, council district development group manager, told the Rotorua Daily Post last week the council had a legal responsibility but Love Soup had not shared any information about what they planned or what they were doing and where.
Gaston said the council advised that any type of accommodation required consent before starting operations and encouraged them to get this process under way.
King said Love Soup, as part of wider efforts to find solutions to homelessness in Rotorua, had stopped having regular meetings with other local organisations as they had a clear database now of what everyone was doing.
“It was just starting to be chitty chat but now we are in the movement side to get things done.”
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.