Home is where hope begins

A 3-storey building has risen from the ground on the cleared land opposite our Hereford Street headquarters and we can’t wait to start breathing life into it later this year.

This is our new transitional housing complex. Inside that tangle of scaffolding and gibbed walls we are creating three shared apartments with five bedrooms in in each. They will be the launch pad for a new life for Christchurch’s homeless people. With it we are going to lift our success rate in getting homeless people into permanent housing and changing their lives for the better.

Of course it’s just a building, and it’s people who make the real difference in helping others, but the building will be an important tool to bring new ideas and new energy.

At the moment we do a good long-term job but not a great job when homeless men and women turn up on our doorstep in a crisis. 

We take them in with open arms. We look after them. We feed them, and help them get clean and healthy. One of our social workers takes them under their wing and we put a plan in place to get them out of the emergency accommodation and into permanent housing in Christchurch.

But, honestly, given that we work with the most difficult clients in Christchurch, too many of these people fail to succeed on this pathway and they can often recycle back to us months later. 

Some do well of course. All they needed was a break and for us to take the load and help them reset, and then they are away again. But others become stuck in a cycle of failing to live sustainably by themselves in the community.

These are the ones we will be investing into with our transitional housing. We know they can succeed – it’s just they need more support and guidance than we have been able to give them in the short time they can stay in the emergency housing.

That’s where the “middle step” of transitional housing comes in.