Driven to fix quake housing
POCKETS of rough sleepers are scattered across Christchurch, says a greatgrandmother and community board member who spent a week sleeping in her car to highlight the issue.
Diabetic Brenda Lowe-johnson, 68, said the city’s housing crisis was worse than she had feared.
The Hagley-ferrymead Community Board member, who has worked for residents for the past 40 years, had had a ‘‘gutsful’’ of inaction over the rental crisis and decided to take a stand against it.
For a week she suffered broken sleep in her car, ate takeaways, washed herself at public toilets, borrowed friends’ bathrooms and washing machines, worked during the day and ‘‘pretty much just killed time’’ at night. During her homeless stint, she came across more than 40 other car sleepers, including children, she said.
‘‘It’s bigger than I’d first realised
David Hallett/fairfaxnz and I haven’t even scratched the surface on this. There are pockets of rough sleepers all over Christchurch,’’ she said.
Despite battling ‘‘exhaustion’’ at Tuesday’s housing summit, where she received a round of applause from politicians and welfare agencies, Lowe-johnson said she had never felt more passionate about something.
She has introduced a petition to Parliament calling for rent caps.
‘‘I am not going to stop this stand until the legislation changes,’’ she said.