Social service marks year at Tauranga RSA
Much more than an emergency motel: counsellor
As most New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day this weekend, a Tauranga social service agency will be quietly celebrating the first birthday of its “one-stop shop” for the city’s most vulnerable.
Te Tuinga Wha¯nau Support Services Trust has been providing wraparound support to struggling community members at the Tauranga RSA motel since the Covid19 crisis last year.
The support on offer includes a safe place to sleep, free meals and access to social workers and healthcare.
And just last week the Tauranga Returned Services Association made the call to extend the agency’s contract, allowing it to occupy the motel for another year.
Te Tuinga Wha¯nau executive director Tommy Wilson described the news as a “huge relief”.
“We had no Plan B. There is nowhere else to go,” he said.
“This is a huge relief for us as we would have had to find somewhere pre-winter, an almost impossible mission.
“We are a one-stop shop. It is a community centre, and long may it stay a community centre.”
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development would continue to pay for the rooms over the year, he said.
Tauranga RSA president Fred
Milligan said the agreement with Te Tuinga Wha¯ nau aligned with its philosophy around welfare.
“This case here is an ideal one in many ways because we are helping the population around us — they had a problem — and we had the ability to help provide an answer.
“It helps these people get through the winter, which is a problem, and if you work it right it will also get them through the holiday period.”
He said the committee’s decision to extend the contract wasn’t difficult, as it also helps keeps the RSA afloat.
“It is a godsend to us. We need the money, so it is very handy having that finance.”
He previously told the Bay of Plenty Times when the country went into lockdown, that the future of the RSA building looked “dire”, with no income through the usual source of the motel.
Te Tuinga Wha¯nau social worker Sophia Murray said it had been able to house about 200 individuals at the motel over the past year.
The 22 rooms at the motel had been occupied by vulnerable families and individuals for most of the year.
“It has not come without its challenges. But between the Te Tuinga team, the RSA and security we have managed to provide a space that has kept everybody safe.”
Most people spent about 12 weeks at the motel depending on their needs. However, Murray said this could be extended as winter approached. It was a place for them to stay until they found long-term accommodation.
“This is a place of reflection and healing, it is much more than an emergency motel.”
She believed working alongside the RSA had been “hugely rewarding” for both parties.
“We are here, we sit alongside the RSA and we do it respectfully. It has been a hugely rewarding experience.
“We see those who make the connection back to wha¯nau, get their own whare, their children are in school — and this is why I do this.
“There is a whole lot of people that sit in this space to create the magic,” she said.
By the end of 2022, Te Tuinga Wha¯nau hoped to start moving motel residents into its planned multimillion-dollar homeless village Whare Awhi.
“We have ordered the houses and we are aiming to start transitions at the end of next year.”