Every day a highlight — good or bad
Photographer John Crawford used his iPhone to take pictures of people who have called the streets home. His work is being exhibited this month
Despite having little to call his own, one man who lived on the streets for years has always made sure to share his food with others. Jack, 61, had a regular spot opposite the town hall in Queen St, where he arrived each day as early as 5.30 in the morning.
From the food he was given, the softly smiling man kept enough for himself and took the rest to the City Mission, where he was a volunteer helper.
“If I have got it, I give it. If there’s trouble on the streets with any of the rough sleepers I help sort it out. I treat all streeties as family.”
Jack has a diploma in social work, has farmed oysters and said he had also done six years in the Army.
The street was his home for a number of years and he often slept by the library in the summer.
This winter his oldest brother said, “you’ve gotta pull your a*** off the streets, bro, you’re too old for this”. So now he’s staying with a niece. Jack’s story, along with several others, has been told as part of an exhibition of 25 portraits, all taken against the same concrete backdrop of a laneway in central Auckland.
Each black and white photo by John Crawford on his iPhone camera tells a different story of the lived street experience.
These stories feature as part of the On the Street exhibition which opens at the Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland this month.
For Stan, 57, who goes by the name of Dokta, home is an old van in West Auckland with his pug bulldog, also called Dokta, by his side.
His mother died when he was just 9, and Dokta said his one sister and four brothers were all passed onto the whanau.
“My whole world collapsed . . . but no one could handle us.”
Dokta followed in his uncles’ and cousins’ footsteps and became a patched gang member. He spent 26 years in prison, where his tattoos were done, but said he was now a man of peace: “I woke up one day and thought, I’m finished here.”
Today he helps counsels troubled, or rebellious youth.
Home for Hori, 57, is a small shack with no power and an outdoor long drop north of Auckland. He gets most of what he needs from the land, catching eels, rabbits and venison.
“My best friends are the kereru, which are always around me.”
Originally from the Hokianga, Hori, whose friends call him George, has a long list of ancestral names that trace back to his great, great, great grandfather.
Adopted and brought up by his grandfather and various uncles and aunts, he spent time in a gang, before he was married and had six children.
His tattoos were done by a Rastafarian tattooist in Ruatoria 11 years ago.
“Every day is a highlight, bro, appreciating that I wake up to see another day . . . good or bad.”
For nearly three years the doorway of the same empty shop in Auckland central was where Sticks lay his head at night.
But this changed when the building was pulled down.
Sticks, 58, has been homeless in Auckland for almost a decade, wandering in bare feet with his waistlength, matted dreadlocks and dressed in the same multi-layer of clothes both summer and winter. His weekly highlight is watching movies at a small internet cafe.
He has a small suitcase of belongings, padlocked to a pole next to his umbrella and rolled-up blankets.
He told Crawford he never begged but got enough money to survive and buys his food from the supermarket.
For the last eight years Amanda, 34, has sat on the pavement on a rug in the same street every day.
She described her life as “hell”, abused by people who should have cared for her.
Life on the streets has not always been easy either. She was once stabbed over cigarettes.
She’s had two kids from street relationships, both of whom were adopted out.
Amanda said she once worked as a nurse. Today, she lives in a small room in a lodge and receives money from a benefit which covers rent and takeaway food, but she spends her days on the streets.
“I’m trying to forgive . . . I miss my kids, there’s nothing you can do better in life than give love.”
Family is important for Peter, 50, who has four generations of family back in the Hawke’s Bay town of Pukehou.
“It’s all about my whanau, I’m going to spend Christmas with my mum, sister and my daughter, she’s 32 and looks just like me except she’s with black hair. I’m a grandad too, now.”
A friend carved his full-face moko in Hawke’s Bay.
When Peter met Crawford right on the dot of 11am as planned, he was clean shaven and had freshly washed hair: “I hope I look okay?”
With 20 years in a gang behind him, Peter admitted he had got into a bit of trouble and spent 10 years behind bars. He vows never to go back.