Rotorua Visions of a Helping Hand homeless shelter gets consent at new location

The Pukuatua St Drop-in Centre. Photo / File

A Rotorua shelter for the homeless which was shut down for health and safety reasons will be reopened - but at a different site.

Visions of a Helping Hand Charitable Trust has received the building consent needed to turn its current daytime drop-in centre, on Pukuatua St, into a night shelter.

The Rotorua Lakes Council has confirmed in a statement yesterday that consent for the Pukuatua St centre was granted yesterday and collected today.

The consent follows a statement from Visions of a Helping Hand last week which said the "Eruera St location was ruled out as a viable option for a night shelter some weeks ago because the work required to bring it up to scratch was too costly and would take too long to complete".

Final fire safety and structural reports for the Pukuatua St centre, along with a building consent application, were filed with the council on Friday.

The drop-in centre had previously come under fire from neighbouring businesses who said they had seen spitting, urination, aggressive behaviour, vulgar language and people "running around high on synthetics" outside the centre.

The Rotorua Lakes Council is currently paying for security guards at the door to the centre.

Visions of a Helping Hand's Julia Fonotia said it was "really good to be progressing".

The trust met with the council and was advised consent would be approved by the middle of this week.

"It's nice to see the timeline, that it's all going to plan and the communication with the council has been awesome."

Building work would now start on the shelter so a code of compliance certificate could be issued from the council before the change of use.

Fonotia said the aim was to have the work completed within the next one to two weeks.

A Rotorua marae has opened its doors to the homeless until the new shelter opens, but it did not want to be named.

The Ministry of Social Development has agreed to cover the cost of security at the marae.

"As far as I know things at the marae are going well," Fonotia said.

"Obviously it will be better to be back in our own space but we are so grateful to the marae."

She said hopefully things would keep going to plan.

Homeless shelter organiser Tiny Deane said it was a good result.