MEET TE ARO PARK’S REGULARS
Te Aro Park in the central city was the subject of a recent report by police and Wellington City Council, which showed it had become a magnet for anti-social behaviour. This included intimidation, violence, defecation, graffiti, harassment, physical harm, aggressive behaviour, loud music, drug dealing, and sexual violence. Some issues were being reported ‘‘every hour of every day’’. The social harm cost of the park has reached almost $15 million in seven years, for a total of 4427 offences. Reporter Tom Hunt and photographer Kevin Stent met some people for whom the park is a way of life.
Candy
It is not yet midday and the heavy smell of chardonnay emanates from Candy Date.
He broke up with his girlfriend halfan-hour back but he would have drunk five bottles of wine today in any case.
He will do the same tomorrow and the next day.
Date – real name Isaac Walker – will spend the day at Te Aro Park, the central Wellington flashpoint where a cocktail of alcohol and homelessness has been mixed to create violence and disorder.
‘‘I am peaceful, I don’t look for violence. I love making love songs,’’ Date says.
He takes another swig from his cleanskin chardonnay. He is dressed as a walking billboard for his own music. ‘‘Spotify me,’’ his pink top says.
‘‘I am a famous musician,’’ he says. ‘‘But I have got no money.’’
A pink bandanna hangs from his waist and his glasses – a chain wrapped around them – have no lenses.
Another pink bandanna is tied around his head. There are teardrops tattooed down his left cheek from when he used to hang with the Mongrel Mob. Date laughs a lot.
His plans today are simple: ‘‘Getting drunk, getting into trouble.’’
It is usually just arguing but he says he has served jail time for domestic violence.
Date is 34. He was born and raised in Gisborne, and made the trip to Wellington five years ago.
‘‘It is a cool place to be,’’ he says of Wellington, ‘‘all the people.’’
These days he lives in a motel – emergency accommodation – down Courtenay Place way.
He makes his way to Te Aro Park by day.
Others will arrive, ‘‘be idiots, get drunk, talk’’.
‘‘It is all about scoring the girls,’’ he
Randel
Randel Matika sits at the corner of the park, a compassionate man of 74 with a laugh of pure joy. There is no laughter when he talks of the others in the park.
They have addiction or mental health issues, with little respect for others, he says.
‘‘I would call them lost souls. ‘‘The saddest thing is, this environment, they chose to choose.
‘‘They congregate together because they have certain things in common.’’
They have come from hardship, be it financial, mental, or where they live, Matika says.
‘‘A lot comes down to alcohol, mental health plays a big part.’’
Individually, the people at the park are friendly but, in a group, that can change, he says.
‘‘It saddens me they do that but that is part of their survival.’’
Randel lives on Wellington’s South Coast and feeds homeless people voluntarily: ‘‘I call it arohanui.’’
He comes to Te Aro Park but here he is an observer: ‘‘I don’t intervene with them because they have a different language.’’
Jason
Jason Taylor has his day mapped out.
He is polishing off his sixth can of Kingfisher beer – 7.2 per cent alcohol – and starts on a flagon of cider as we talk. The clock has just ticked past 11am. ‘‘Then a joint, another drink, maybe some crack [methamphetamine],’’ he says.
The latter is not an addiction. The drink, maybe.
Taylor has lived off-and-on on the streets for years but six months back he had a home in Hutt Valley, if not a job.
He figured he was spending his days on the streets anyway so stopped paying rent and never went back: ‘‘I just got sick of it.’’
Taylor says he has spent 10 to 15 years of his 46 years inside jail, mostly for burglaries and robberies. ‘‘Cops are pretty cool,’’ he says. ‘‘They have known me for years.’’ He reckons he may go to Auckland again soon, get back into weight training, maybe get a house.
‘‘I don’t like taking days off.’’ Eddie Johnstone At Te Aro Park
Eddie
Eddie Johnstone has scored some secondhand pants and came to Te Aro Park to use the toilets to change into them.
They hang off his scraggy frame. He is in his 60s and has been ‘‘living out’’ – on the streets – for the past couple of years. ‘‘I don’t like taking days off,’’ he says.
Johnstone is from Wellington and went to a good school.
‘‘I used to have everything pretty good,’’ he says. ‘‘It all had to go.’’
He is vague about what happened. He reckons he has a good life when it all weighs up: ‘‘I like it, I am a happy enough fella’’.
‘‘I am a drinker, smoker.’’
Dingo
They call him Dingo or The Harmonica Man of Wellington.
Officially, he is Ronald Sterry, 71, born in England but a New Zealander for the past 40 years.
He is a regular on the streets of Wellington – a shaggy man with a shaggy beard and a fisherman’s hat covered in Anzac poppies and a collection of badges. He is magpie of sorts: He does not steal but takes what is there.
Like the top someone – presumably drunk – took off and threw in the fountain at Te Aro Park. ‘‘I got it out, dried it and I have a shirt.’’
If there are some coins on the ground, they are his.
But if he walks past an open parking metre, with hundreds of dollars inside, he will call the security company.
In his working life he collected rubbish for Wellington City Council.
Now he takes only the rubbish he sees as treasure.
He does not spend much time in Te Aro Park – ‘‘I sometimes look in’’ – but knows where the regulars sit. ‘‘This is where they sit and piss up. ‘‘It makes me bloody laugh,’’ he says, pointing to the sign: Alcohol ban area.
‘‘They are all here drinking scrumpy and wine.’’ Dingo used to drink – ‘‘it was pretty bad, pretty bad’’ – but gave up 25 years ago.
It was six months back he met a woman who changed his life: ‘‘She sat there and held my hands, and I was converted in 90 minutes.’’
Dingo now calls himself a bornagain Christian.
He lives in council flats up Willis St. By day, he hits the streets. Usually it is Cuba Mall until early afternoon, then onwards.
Everywhere he goes, he plays the harmonica. ‘‘I have 23 of them,’’ he says.
‘‘Three-year warranties but I blow them out in three months. I am on ’em 24/7.’’
At first, he pledged to only play at home: ‘‘Within two weeks, I was out here.’’