Family of 8 jammed into motel unit
Mum says cramped lifestyle ‘nuts’ as she desperately hunts for house in Tauranga
Colourful duvets lie across two single beds in the lounge of the Tauranga motel. The edges are all neatly tucked in and the television is on. Metres away in the kitchenette, a few basic food items sit in the cupboard.
Children’s clothing and spare blankets are folded into tidy piles on the shelves next to the small dining table. Everything has its place.
The bedroom door is wide open where a double bed is jammed next to a single bed. A foam mattress is wedged up against the window.
Kristal Heke is sitting on the double bed holding baby Heaven-Leigh while Indiana-Nova is fast asleep in her wahakura (flax-woven bassinet).
The twin girls are 6 weeks old and were born two months prematurely.
But for the past nine days Heke, her partner Justin Marimate and their six children, the eldest aged 13, have been living in the motel unit.
Marimate works full-time as a painter and the family qualify for social housing, but there are no available spaces in the city.
The emergency accommodation is the last resort after the family had to move out of their private rental in the suburb of Merivale last month.
Heke has spent hours looking for rental properties and going to house viewings but has had no luck.
“No one wants to rent to a family this big,” she says.“I’ve been to so many house viewings, more than I can count on my hands and toes three times over. It’s really disheartening going to viewings and never getting offered a house.”
The 32-year-old is concerned for the health and well-being of her young family living in the small space.
Last week, she was told Heaven-Leigh has a hole in her heart. Heke’s 3-year-old son has respiratory problems, which get so bad the little boy needs to be taken to hospital often.
“It’s nuts in here,” she says, looking around the lounge.
The parents sleep in the double bed, the twins are in their wahakura on a single bed, a mattress is pulled into the lounge floor where one child sleeps, another gets a single bed in the lounge and the two younger children top and tail in the last bed.
The weekends are the worst, when the children don’t have school or preschool to attend, Heke says.
“I can’t let them play outside be- cause they’ll bolt and it’s not fenced in at the back. And they are too sick to go outside,” she says.
“I just want a house for my babies.” The twins’ specialist, paediatrician Dr Vivienne Hobbs, says ideally all children should live in warm, dry, well insulated houses to prevent infection.
The Ministry of Social Develop- ment’s regional commissioner for the Bay of Plenty, Mike Bryant, says he is conscious of the difficulties facing the family.
“Since April, when they had to move out of private rental accommodation, we’ve been doing everything we can to help them find a home.”
While looking for a suitable housing option for the family, the ministry is paying $1120 a week for them to live in the motel.
There are currently 1220 public housing tenancies in Tauranga and 82 transitional housing places, all of which are full.
Bryant says transitional housing is freed up more often and a suitable option is likely to become available in the next few days.