Helping the homeless

After being forced out of their home three times the Ngataimorunga family know firsthand the pain of being homeless.

Now, with a Housing New Zealand roof over their heads, the Mt Wellington family are going out of their way to help others in need by feeding and clothing the homeless from their own pockets.

Mother of five Kiana Ngataimorunga, 31, said they’ve also donated blankets, vegetables from their garden and canned food.

‘‘That could have be us,’’ Ngatai-morunga said.

In 2016, at least 228 people were south Auckland but both times landlords told the Ngataimorunga family to leave.

‘‘I had run out of options for us, we had nowhere else to go but to go live in my car. I had five kids, my eldest was 10 at the time and my youngest was one - he was still a baby.’’

A week after being told to vacate in March 2014, Ngataimorunga received a call from Housing New Zealand to view a three-bedroom state home in Mt Wellington, which they now call home.

Two weeks later their initiative for the homeless began after her daughters Tyler, 9, and Rangimaria, 8, came across beggars and the homeless outside a Mt Wellington supermarket.

With their own pocket money, the girls bought a can of baked beans and bread and gave it to those on the street.

‘‘Now we cook soup, sometimes chicken, sometimes bacon, put it all in a box with plates and spoons and go out to feed those on the streets.

‘‘Whatever we can spare every week, we use that to buy food to give away.’’

‘‘My kids initiate our giving every week, going through our cupboards to see what we have that we can share.‘‘