Her question was simple, but it stayed with me. How do you explain something like that to an 11-year-old?
To her, a home is something everyone naturally has. A warm bed, a door that closes, a light that comes on when you enter.
As winter softened into spring, I began noticing small changes around Rotorua.
The motels on Fenton St, once filled with families who had nowhere else to go, were no longer as full.
Empty sections I had passed countless times suddenly had scaffolding and new roofs on them.
In different corners of the city, small and practical homes were rising, places for people trying to get back on their feet.
Even the familiar groups who once stayed near the city centre no longer seemed to be there.
Later, I heard that some had moved into temporary housing in those new developments.
These changes were not dramatic, but they felt meaningful.
On cold evenings, when I no longer saw people curled up under awnings to stay warm, I felt a quiet sense of relief.
Whatever the bigger story may be, at least some of them were no longer facing winter outside.
There are many hard stories behind the people we see on the streets.
Life is complicated for them in ways we may never fully understand, and sometimes I wonder how fragile the idea of home can be, how easily it can be lost, and how hard it is to find again.
But the hope remains the same. Everyone wants a place to call home.
I often think about what makes a place feel like home. It is not the size of it or how new it is.
It is the sense of settling, a room where you can leave your shoes by the door, and a kitchen where you know which drawer the teaspoons are in. A place where life feels possible again.
Perhaps that is what lies at the heart of it. A home is not just walls and a roof, but the quiet sense that you belong somewhere.
Seeing new homes rise in Rotorua gives me a little hope. Stability often begins with something small, a roof, a room, a door that belongs to you.
Recently, my daughter and I drove through the same streets again.
We passed the roundabout where she had first seen people sleeping under the awnings last winter. This time, the footpaths were empty. No blankets. No shapes pressed against the cold.
She leaned forward and asked,
“Did they all go home?”
The moment she asked, I felt the truth rise to my lips, that not everyone has a home to return to. But I held the words back.
I wanted to protect her a little longer, even if I could not protect the world for her. The reality is too heavy, and an 11-year-old does not need to carry that weight yet.
I did not answer straight away. Her question stayed in the warm summer air, gentle and full of hope.
Maybe that hope is something we all carry, even when we do not say it out loud.
And with Christmas not far away, I find myself hoping for the same thing she does, that somewhere, for someone, the answer might finally be yes.
