Clock ticking for ‘free livers’ in Christchurch’s makeshift red zone camp
A deadline is looming for a community of about 30 homeless and self-described “free-livers” who have made their homes in Christchurch’s former red zone. But as LOUIS WALKER reports, the city council has other plans for the area.
Stretching towards New Brighton, a scarred asphalt road is bordered with campervans, tents and discarded furniture and flanked on either side by the outlines of long- abandoned gardens, a ghostly echo of a once populous suburban area. The skies are clear and autumn is beginning to descend on the Christchurch red zone.
I am talking to one of those who has made an abandoned street in Bexley her home - Ngawai Timu, 65, who says the community is “going back to the old days of living off the land”.
They are growing vegetables including silverbeet and had prepared food with a hāngī on Christmas Day. She points to a patch of bare earth not far from where the community’s water supply comes out of the ground. They also send out hunting parties and have two boats that are used for diving and fishing.
But the Christchurch City Council plans to build a long-term stopbank in Bexley and allow the area to become a wetland.
Timu knows this will require her and the other residents to move on within the next year, but she hopes the camp can provide a safe haven for the Christchurch homeless over the coming winter.
Her plans include the installation of semi-permanent toilet and shower facilities, something she is waiting for council approval on. If she gets it, this will put her other ideas in motion. “Then we can kick this place off.”
She intends to pitch “two big circus tents” in which rough sleepers can find shelter and set up a greenhouse to shield the vegetable garden from frost. Another tent will allow for cooking and shared meals.
City councillor Yani Johanson says that “installing permanent structures would be difficult” given the council’s deadline. “This doesn’t take away from the need for basic services and I have sought advice from council staff as to how these may be provided as an interim measure.”
He understood that about 30 people lived at the Bexley camp, with about eight of these being engaged with either the Methodist Mission or Housing First.
The remainder did not see themselves as homeless, Johanson said. “We need to find solutions to ensure that people have access to safe and warm places to call home”, he said. “New and innovative responses are required.”
In December, the city council’s red zone manager Dave Little told the Waitai Coastal-Burwood-Linwood Community board that the Bexley camp had become “increasingly entrenched” and that the council would work “alongside social service providers and housing agencies to ensure individuals are supported ... and the area eventually returns to a natural state.”
‘Free livers’ are not homeless
Timu says she nearly lost her foot in an accident 10 years ago and despite surgery, she was suffering from ongoing chronic pain and was in the process of trying to come off her pain medication with the help of doctors.
She says she had received $740 a week from ACC for her injury up until her 65th birthday, when this was replaced by a smaller $500- a-week pension.
She was offered a two-bedroom Kainga Ora home where she lived for six months after turning 65 but complained of the cold and the fact her son and grandson weren’t allowed to stay overnight.
“I got lonely, so I kept on coming back out here.”
Eventually she moved back to the red zone to rejoin the growing makeshift camp.
Timu is careful to distinguish between “free-livers” who lived out of their vehicles - like herself - and the homeless, who have “nothing, no vehicle, pushing a trolley”.
She mentions cases of suicide brought on by harsh living conditions and people freezing to death without adequate shelter. However, homeless people often did not know about the camp or avoided it because of the no-drugs sign she had put up.
She says many rough sleepers had moved out of the city at the encouragement of social workers - including those who were previously staying at Avonside’s Holy Trinity Church.
Timu says people are now scattered throughout the red zone and along New Brighton Beach. “You walk this whole zone and you’ll see them all.”
She wants to give them a place to stay and be “looked after” by the existing community - “because we know what it’s like out there in tents.”
“It’s getting colder and colder.”
When the time comes for the group to move on, “the council will have to have another place to put us.”
Red zone camp ‘safer’ than state house
Fellow red zoner, Damian Fraser, is a 62-year-old former welder, who was paying rent on a state housing unit but chose to live in his vehicle away from the bustle of the city because he considered it safer.
He says a neighbour at an older address had caused nearly $6000 worth of damage to his car. He was moved to a new flat by his housing provider but believed conditions had only gotten worse. He says one day he returned to his garden shed to find that all his tools were gone.
He was unable to work because of tendinopathy and arthritis and paid his expenses with the help of a supportive living benefit and money he earned by collecting cans.
Born and raised in Hamilton, he planned to begin a journey home after seeing through a couple of upcoming medical appointments in Christchurch and would stay with family members at various points on the way up.
Fraser speaks frankly of a past that includes decades of heavy drinking and time in prison for crimes including theft and assault. He also admits to being caught up in a “massive bust” of marijuana growers back in Hamilton.
But these events are far behind him, he says. He has been sober for six years and meets regularly with a rehab group on Pages Rd. “I learnt from my mistakes. Unfortunately, it took me a lot of years.”
Electric shock sent worker flying
I am directed by another resident towards a large white truck, out the back of which a man with gumboots and a wide-brimmed hat is sitting at a camping table. He is just finishing an animated discussion with a community outreach worker about plans he will soon detail to me.
Phil Rickard, 47, has also dealt with ACC after an injury. He says he was working “installing smart meters and modems” in farms around the West Coast’s Grey Valley three years ago when he touched a metal box and was sent flying “a couple of metres back into the water tank.” The electric shock left him struggling to walk straight and slurring his speech, he said. “And they reckon if I’d grabbed it, I wouldn’t be here.”
He says the fact he had been working for a temp agency meant ACC did not offer compensation. Being unable to work, he was forced to leave his Greymouth rental and turned his truck into a makeshift house.
Born in Christchurch, Rickard said he had lived a lot of his life on the roads and regarded freedom camping as an important part of New Zealand culture. He had set up camp at Wetlands Grove only three weeks earlier after reading about the community online. He wants to spend his time here while recovering from surgery relating to his injury.
He says he is also drawn to the potential for helping those in crisis: “I’ve seen plenty of media around housing issues in New Zealand for a long time, and it’s something that I’ve been passionate about. This is a disaster come from bad management of the country.”
He is planning to propose an idea to the council that it build insulated caravans for the housing deprived – “in theory, you could be building a caravan every week or two. It takes three months to build a house, and then three months to go through all the consent processes for the house.”
He believes this would be a cheaper and quicker way of providing emergency housing. Crucially, it would be accompanied by the sort of wrap-around support he believes many needed to get back on their feet.
He also wants to see “workshop style” tents in which people can be trained in a variety of practical skills, for instance cooking – “you can teach people how to bake bread, make jams and preserves and pickles.” A community garden might provide the opportunity for residents to spend time outdoors and “get grounded back to the Earth”.
Rickard stresses the importance of providing addiction and mental health services, citing data from Stats NZ estimating that 48% of the country’s 5000 rough sleepers were addicts.
‘That’s my home, you know’
Commenting on the move-on laws recently proposed by the Government, Rickard says there are people in town “causing trouble”, but asks “would they be there if it had been managed properly to begin with?
“You can’t get rid of a problem by pushing it into the corner. It’s just not going to work. It’s just going to get worse.”
He says there are a range of reasons why people moved to Wetlands Grove. For some “it’s just easier to live in a bus or something than pay rent”.
He says he is spending $250 a week to cover the build of his truck, with the help of a Work and Income benefit. “But that’s my home, you know? That’s my mortgage.”
Many could not afford to buy food on top of paying rent, he said.
Rickard spent time in emergency housing for five weeks after flooding in Westport and says it was “very toxic”.
“There were gangsters banging on the walls, people dealing crack out of the rooms. There was all sorts going on, and the motel owners didn’t seem to care.”
He says the housing was poorly maintained and not cleaned regularly. “And you know, if you’re a good, reasonably decent person that wants to try and move forward with your life, if you’re surrounded by people that just want to party and get on the gears and have fun, you know it really detracts.”
Safety in numbers
Rickard says housing-deprived people are “scattered through the red zone” and he knows of another camp similar to the one at Bexley. He believes communities like these offer safety in numbers.
Ewan Sargent of City Mission says their outreach team engages with an estimated 250 to 300 rough sleepers in Christchurch, with the majority of these being found in suburban areas.
He says a number of those living at the Bexley camp were working, “and the only way they can afford to live is to sleep in their car at night.”
Like Rickard, he believes they are safer living as a group than they would be alone. “They’re claiming a patch... rather than finding a side street around the back of shops or somewhere they can sleep for the night. This is in their car, but it’s very scary, especially for women who don’t know who’s going to come up to the car and knock on the window, or give it a shake, or worse.
“They never, ever can turn off their wariness.”
