Inns full as families flock in
Housing crisis spills over into motels as Winz puts homeless into short-stay lodgings
Eight motels accepting homeless people in South Auckland say they are all full, as the city’s housing crisis spills over into short-stay accommodation. Work and Income says it paid 184 families and individuals across Auckland last week for emergency housing.
In South Auckland, eight motels contacted by the Herald said they were full with Work and Income paying for 78 rooms, 22 per cent of their total of 355 rooms.
One motel, where people with housing grants fill a third of its 38 rooms, has opened a waiting list because it has to turn families away.
“They are just phoning up to see if there are any vacancies for families for long stays,” the manager said.
Some of the motels complained about the behaviour of some tenants.
At the Budget Travellers Inn in Papatoetoe, manager Alok Tulsankar said 14 of its 42 rooms had people with housing grants, including 22 to 25 children. But he said he had to evict one solo mother with her child last week after her partner’s friends threw flower pots at him and punched him in the mouth at midnight on Friday. He filed a complaint with police.
Another Papatoetoe motel also called the police after friends of a homeless family stole gear worth $5000 from its garage.
Some tenants have also been unhappy with the accommodation.
With rooms scarce, solo mother-ofthree Faith Davis ended up being offered a studio unit that would take
HFor a video see nzherald.co.nz only two of her three children. Davis said Work and Income gave her a voucher for a room at the Knightsbridge Motor Lodge in Papatoetoe on Monday, but the lodge would accept only two children in a studio unit so she asked her parents to take her 4-year-old son Leobluu. “It was really smelly . . . [and] the kitchen is really small.” Her parents came back to get her after an hour and took her back to the Cimarron Motel in Takanini, where she has lived for the past year. She believed she had to leave the Cimarron because it has been bought by Housing NZ, but property manager Colin Grieve said she could actually stay until February.
Knightsbridge manager Min Kang said the studio unit had only two beds and was the only space available in the lodge, where people on housing grants fill 20 of the 34 units.
He denied the unit was dirty and said smell was “up to personal taste”.
Davis said Work and Income rang just after the Herald visited yesterday and offered her a state house in Papakura, which she has accepted.
Social Development Ministry deputy chief executive Kay Read said the ministry was working hard to find new housing for all existing tenants in the Cimarron Motel, which Housing NZ will use for emergency housing. It is also looking into Davis’ case. “Ms Davis has told us that the standard of the motor lodge was well below what we would consider acceptable for a family with young children. This must have been very distressing for Ms Davis and we have called today to apologise for this.
“We’ll be checking in with the motel to recover the payment we made and also to check its adequacy.”
Read said motels ultimately decided whom they would take and there was a wide range of them that had accommodated people. his history of domestic violence against ex-girlfriend Rihanna. And that could keep Boy George out too, leaving the band without their lead singer and front man.
In 2009, Boy George — whose real name is George O’Dowd — was convicted for falsely imprisoning a male escort and beating him.
O’Dowd was fined £5000 ($8900) and sentenced to 15 months’ jail, but only served four before being released on good behaviour. . He was denied a US visa in 2008 due to his criminal history.
Other stars with criminal pasts have been allowed into New Zealand. Immigration New Zealand confirmed O’Dowd’s visa application is yet to be received.