Some of life’s most important work is quiet, happening in places you wouldn’t expect. Beds are prepared for guests who need a place to stay. Food is cooked for hungry mouths. Space is made for those who need time to think at the most challenging times.
It’s therefore fitting that in an unsuspecting alleyway in Wellington - where I THINK I’m meant to be - that I'm forced to turn my car around. I just can’t work out where I’m meant to go, but after looking for a car park, even mistakenly going into a nearby building, I eventually return. My destination? The Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust where I am meeting General Manager Hiria Lee Tamaha. We spy one another as I finally make it. “Kia Ora” she greets me. “I saved you a car park!”
Yes - it’s easy to miss the entrance to the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust accommodation. But that’s how Hiria and her guests prefer it. The temporary accommodation provides a place of refuge for women sleeping rough on the streets who have nowhere else to go. It isn’t easy to find -but here that’s a benefit. The guests who come here may be escaping abuse, and don’t always want to be found.
The Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust is a charity dedicated to making a difference within the Wellington community by providing support and accommodation to homeless women in the central city. These women need a safe environment with a high level of understanding that can support their needs. It begins with people like Hiria providing up them to three months temporary accommodation with specialised support staff seven days a week. The Wellington Homeless supports them through working with varying social service providers and other key essential groups within the community.
Until recently, the Wellington Homeless Womens Trust only had 5 rooms. Now, they have 14 spots that can be occupied by women in need. However, more work - and crucially more funding and more rooms - are needed. Here, demand far outstrips supply. “This is the first time that the charity has gotten a contract with the Ministry of Social Development and extend the space from 5 to 14” Hiria says. “That is going to tremendously help us help the women from Wellington and give them a place to stay.”
The charity was started in 2013 when the Police approached an order of nuns local to the area (Daughter of Ladies of Compassion) and asked them if they could help women in trouble in the community. “A lot of the women coming in here were by referral from hospitals, Salvation Army and mental health wards,” says Hiria. “Many of them are Pasifika and Māori.”
Every situation and every woman is complex. Most women experience homelessness due to historical trauma, domestic violence, sexual abuse, disconnection from whanau and varying alcohol; drug addiction issues that have an overall impact on their personal health and wellbeing. “One of the trends is that women are disconnected from their families” Hiria says. “We’re also getting more women in the 45-60 age range.”
However, the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust aims to work alongside each woman to help her rebuild her confidence, regain independence and self-worth whilst transitioning her a safe place that she can call, ‘home’.
The trust aim to get women to be on the emergency housing list, but often it take 12 weeks to be assessed. “What do they do in the meantime?” says Hiria. “We’re now needed more than ever. Before getting the extension, I didn’t keep a waiting list because there were too many women who wanted a spot. Now we can better able to use our networks and help women in the short term, while referring women into more long term-accommodation options.”
Finding long-term accommodation for guests is always challenging, Hiria says, but not always for the reasons that you might think. Some people feel happier on the streets and have a community, she says. “It’s like their social network. Say they get a house; if the accommodation is far away, they don’t know anyone in their community, they get depressed.”
Hiria compares the dependency on homelessness to incarceration. “Some people feel safer in prison. The homeless, in a way, are in a kind of prison,” she says. “There’s a perception that they’re in a bad place from the public, but in the framework of their own experiences they feel safe. Going into social housing, sometimes there’s a fear of loneliness, uncertainty and difficulty. Just because someone says they want a house, if they don’t know why they want it - and fall back into old ways.”
Breaking old behaviour patterns isn’t easy for women experiencing homelessness. “The problem with our women is that they go into survival mode to get what they need. They rely on their friends, their partners (who they might have had a bad relationship with) and their families” says Hiria. “If it’s all you know, you’re likely to reconnect to these old people, in old places. Often, they can’t get away and make a fresh start.”
Hiria has created a support programme that she uses to help women move from a high level of problems to a level where they can change. “They really haven’t discovered themselves,” says Hiria. “They don’t know what they want, or who they actually are. But they can be anything they want to be” she says.
Often, women have lost childhoods, lost self-worth and seen negative behaviours normalised.
Hiria encourages women to think about themselves and break the cycle of blame and abuse they’ve struggled with. “I tell them that they need to focus on themselves, their health, their ambitions. The little things for our women in life come with all the baggage they carry on their shoulders,” she says.
Examining family history is key, says Hiria. Sometimes the women themselves are embarrassed that they don’t see how their lives are out of control. “It’s education,” says Hiria. “Teaching them things they weren’t taught. I tell them they just need to look at their whanau and their lifestyle. I ask them to look, really look.”
Hiria believes that a change in mindset for women in the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust is where the work truly begins. “I try and talk to them about rich and poor,” says Hiria. “They say ‘Well, that person has money, and we don’t’. So I try and show them that it isn’t about the material things. Yes, if you do bother to look after yourself, you’ll feel amazing. There’s something you can always take away from everyone you meet and learn from them. But always come back to me, myself and I. It doesn’t cost anything to be a good person.”
For now, Hiria has a launch on her hands, and plenty more women to help. “I keep telling the girls that this new extension opening isn’t about the fancy MPs and all of us in the corner. It’s about them. Their story is precious and they only need to tell people they want to about it. But this place was made for them. They’re the ones that this celebration is about, because they are special.”
You can learn more about the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust here and support them.