Relief for Feilding home hunters
Retired taxi driver Darryl Osborne didn’t anticipate being homeless on his 70th birthday.
But when his daughter’s family sold their home on the outskirts of Palmerston North, where he had lived in a separate flat, he found himself at Work and Income begging for a roof over his head.
Confined to a motel for the past three months, Osborne this week moved into the first of 14 emergency and social housing units to be built in Feilding.
The cost of using motels for emergency housing is ratcheting up, with the Government granting $23 million in just the first three months of this year.
Once flushed with tourists and business travellers, regional motels are now described as a dumping ground for the down and out.
In Manawatu¯ , there are more than 400 people on the waiting list for emergency housing.
It’s prompted Palmerston North Motel owners Lyn and Brett Biel to join the crusade against homelessness by partnering with building company Thermawise Homes to build cheap onebedroom units in Feilding at a weekly rental of $235.
Other partners have jumped on board and Thermawise will soon build another 13 units in the Manawatu¯ town, targeting low income and povertystricken Kiwis.
Each unit is divided into two apartments, each with one bedroom.
Lyn Biel offered her first unit to Osborne, who had previously been placed in her motel, but she had used her business to provide shelter for the homeless for several years and treated her clients as her family.
‘‘There can be 30 people that show up to a viewing and it’s hard to be the chosen child,’’ she said, of the difficulty to find private accommodation.
Osborne once judged those who were homeless, but he said there was no greater feeling of helplessness than when he had nowhere to call home.
‘‘I used to look down on people like that, but it really could happen to anyone,’’ he said.
‘‘The light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a forever coming train anymore.’’
Thermawise Homes director Ricky Pene said his childhood was spent being bounced between cold and damp state homes in Feilding, which fuelled the desire to find a solution.
He then spent four years researching the designs, costs and demands of social housing.
‘‘As my son Charlie says, everyone should have a house, especially homeless people,’’ Pene said.
‘‘I have been critical of how slow the sector has reacted to the growing demand for housing, but I am a firm believer the regions can solve the regions’ problems.’’
Manawatu¯ mayor Helen Worboys said the district was at the peak of a housing crisis and congratulated Pene for springing to action.
‘‘I know some of the journey has been hard and there have been times where anyone else would have walked away.’’
The homes cost about $200,000 each and are effectively kit-set homes constructed from structural insulated panels. They take 16 weeks to build.