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The Wellington Night Shelter
Manager: Barry McDonald, 304 Taranaki St 04-385-9546
Trust members: DCM, Catholic Social Services, Salvation Army Community and Family Services, St Vincent de Paul, Presbyterian Family Support Centre, Wellington Wesley Mission and the Wellington Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society.
Proposed design for the refurbished Night Shelter |
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THE SURVIVAL GUIDE
Living in Wellington on a low income |
Compassion House, Lukes Lane |
Night Shelter Work About to Start
The first substantial work to be done in nearly 40 years on Wellington’s Night Shelter is set to begin.
The refurbishment work that plans to gut the interior of the building and “start again from scratch” is music to the ears of Manager Barry McDonald. “I’m absolutely looking forward to it,” says Barry. “It will give the whole place a new start and really bring it up to standard.”
Just a quick look around the Night Shelter reveals the full extent and desperate need for the long overdue work. The rooms are dark, dank and cold, and the space is tight. The aging process hasn’t been kind either, carpet is worn and furniture broken.
Downtown Community Ministry’s Project Margin Coordinator Di Landy agrees that the Night Shelter’s condition is unacceptable. “Anyone with an asthmatic complaint has had to deal with the mould and dampness – the refurbishment will finally address these things,” she said.
A key partner in the refurbishment is Fletcher Construction who were invited to be involved early in the planning stages by former Wellington Mayor Fran Wilde.
Chairperson of the Night Shelter Trust, Terry Leamy, says “Fletcher’s are doing this at cost as a gesture of good will. They have a long history of building in Wellington, they built the railway station and this continues their practice of giving to the people of Wellington”.
The upgrade will see the number of rooms upstairs increased by over a third, from 14 to 22 with no decrease in room size.
Improvements to the Night Shelter include the downstairs shower block being completely rebuilt and new showers installed upstairs. This will make a huge difference for those residents upstairs who currently have no shower facilities available and have to wait until all downstairs residents are vacated in the morning before they can shower.
The upstairs kitchen and lounge areas are being completely opened up to give more space and comfort. An outside deck is also to be renovated on the north east corner and all electrical wiring will be replaced.
Barry expects the refurbishment work will make the night shelter more comfortable for its residents and hopes the new look will instill greater respect for the place.
This was certainly the case at the Suzanne Aubert Compassion Centre says Manager Sr Margaret Mary Murphy.
“Once we moved into our new premises we immediately noticed a change. We had come from a very institutional place to here, where it’s roomy and bright. The dining room has a view right into the kitchen so it’s a whole lot friendlier… A lot of the guys mentioned how much better it was, I could have never foreseen how much of a difference it would make.”
The Night Shelter was built in 1968 to provide a group of older homeless men - many of them war veterans who had become alcoholics - with a roof over their heads.
Now the client group is younger and many have mental health issues as well as drug, alcohol and gambling addictions. Other clients often include students and refugees and new migrants.
The Night Shelter’s ground floor dormitory hosts temporary stay residents which Barry says averages 10 or 12 men a night – 2 or 3 of whom he won’t have seen before – and on average are 29 years old. The upstairs hostel residents are mostly men in their 50s.
DCM regularly makes referrals to the Night Shelter for crisis and emergency situations until more suitable accommodation is found.
