When home becomes an emergency
A new emergency house has opened in the suburb of Naenae, making it the fourth one opened in the Hutt Valley in the past six weeks.
Koraunui Marae Trust opened a new emergency housing site for women and children on Monday.
The six-bedroom, threebathroom house was officially opened with a small ceremony. The first family moves in this
‘‘It was really quite moving and quite awesome that we could provide extra emergency housing for Lower Hutt because there's definitely a need for it.’’
week.
Marae manager Henrietta Gemmell said people from the community and their whanau, along with Ministry of Social Development workers, put in a lot of hard work in the leadup to the opening.
Students from the marae’s alternative education programme lent a hand with cleaning up the house and preparing it for families.
‘‘It was really quite moving and quite awesome that we could provide extra emergency housing for Lower Hutt because there’s definitely a need for it,’’ she said.
Clients can stay in the house for up to 12 weeks. The house can hold up to 13 people but that number can vary depending on the size of families coming in and the support needed.
The Naenae house will function as a transitional house with the marae working to establish the women and children in stable accommodation once they leave.
Koraunui Marae Trust was contracted by the Social Development Ministry to provide both housing and support services. The trust already operates one other house in Naenae.
Associate Social Housing Minister Alfred Ngaro attended the opening of the house and told the people gathered he was ‘‘so proud of the whole community’’.
It was vital to support the needs of whanau and create a home full of aroha (compassion), he said.
‘‘This [house] has the potential to be so much more. They’re looking to have a house mother on site to provide support.’’
The Government last year contributed $354 million towards emergency housing, aiming to provide 8600 places a year.