Home, sweet respite home after years of ‘not in my backyard’

Nobody wanted a residence in their backyard for people needing specialist mental health support but after a Porirua trust spent two years looking for a property, it was Kāinga Ora that stepped up.

Three Kāinga Ora houses have been joined together to become a six-bedroom respite home for tangata motuhake (Māori facing mental health challenges) who no longer require inpatient services at hospitals.

Te Waka Whaiora Trust started asking Kāinga Ora for help in late 2020 after it was awarded a contract to offer specialist-supported accommodation. “We had about two years of refusals, we went through about 32 housing estates trying to rent a property and we were declined all the time,” said Carole Koha, Te Waka Whaiora Trust’s Pou Kaihautu (leader).

The charitable trust even tried to buy its own property but many people didn’t want to have people struggling with mental health and addictions in their neighbourhoods.

The whare had been “a long time” coming but the wait was worth it, she said.

The properties on Bedford St in Cannons Creek had been leased by the trust kaupapa since 1997 as office spaces.

The building was the first step of an integration period that could take up to three months, and there were two people currently staying at the whare overnight.

“They would have spent a long time in the locked units,” said Koha. “They work with the clinicians [and] the nurses, they prepare those people to live in the community with less restriction of movement.”

It combined three standalone houses, re-purposing them into one building with six bedrooms, two kitchens, three toilets, and multiple lounges that could be a separate space for residents depending on their gender identity. There was also some groundwork and decking to help the building feel like a home.

“They might come just for meals, and then they go back to the hospital,” Koha said.