Finally, a place I can call home
After sleeping in a central Wellington bus shelter for more than a month, Anna Bongers feels like she doesn’t have a problem in the world now that she has a place to call home.
She now has a nice warm room, a bed decked out with decorated pillows, a desk, heater, television and her very own bathroom. She can even watch the birds flying past her window, she said as she pointed out two lorikeets zipping by.
‘‘Moving into the place was a bit scary and I felt a bit unsure, but I’m getting used to having more things,’’ Bongers said yesterday. ‘‘I wouldn’t want to be outside over these few months. I was living outside during two storms and they both knocked me out cold.’’
For more than a month, since arriving from Blenheim, Bongers had been sleeping in a bus shelter, leaving as the sun came up and returning as night fell.
She was one of 41,000 people in New Zealand who were considered homeless, a figure that included people who were living out of cars and garages.
But one day the 63-year-old was searching for some milk to put in her tea. She stopped by Te Wa¯ hi A¯ whina, a community support space on Manners St, with her mint green bike in tow.
There, she met pastor Joe Serevi from the Salvation Army, who listened to her plight and helped her move into a room in a central Wellington hotel that he knew would be a good home for her. She pays for it from her benefits.
‘‘I want to thank everyone who helped me in my time of defeat. They accepted who I was and made me feel secure in Wellington as a newcomer,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t even feel like a newcomer, I feel like a Wellingtonian.’’
Researchers have found members of the homeless population, especially those from communities that were marginalised, often had ‘‘low institutional trust’’ in governmental services because of their encounters.
Serevi, who has been doing outreach work in Wellington for almost six years and who is now Bongers’ advocate when dealing with governmental services, has helped her with paperwork and processes to overcome those issues.
Bongers had become more social and open since moving into her new space. ‘‘She’s picking up and back on her journey of life,’’ Serevi said.
For her part, Bongers said she now felt stable and ‘‘everything is flowing nicely’’. ‘‘I walked into Joe’s energy and now, I’m walking into a new light.’’