CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
Danene Collier, 46, has terminal cancer and has been living in emergency housing in motels. She's pictured with ex-partner Duncan Plunkett, who still helps care for her and her daughter.
A little over a week ago Danene Collier's life was piled up in the corner of a small motel room in Hamilton. Banana boxes, a German Shepherd statue, reusable bags, aloe vera plants and coats lined the walls of the small room she shared with her young daughter. The 46-year-old mother of one was trying to remain optimistic but, homeless and facing terminal cancer, Collier admitted, "Sometimes it gets pretty bloody hard."
Since then Collier has moved into a Housing New Zealand home in Hamilton East - the first permanent home she'll have in nearly a year of bouncing between caravan parks and motel rooms with Annaleyne, 11. Their last home was in Te Aroha, Waikato, where Collier and her ex partner Duncan Plunkett, had lived for about six years until the family was evicted, owing thousands.
Their eviction came not long after Collier received her cancer diagnosis, and the family went onto the state housing wait list which has reached its highest levels in a decade. As of this week 11,600 eligible households were on the list. Most - 9623 - were 'priority A'. The numbers are only expected to increase as winter bites and officials spoken to by Stuff agree the average wait time, 107 days, is too long. For people like Collier and Plunkett, it can be spent in motel rooms and caravan parks.
Collier and Plunkett's financial security has been thwarted in part by their health. Neither has worked in years. Plunkett went on a jobseeker benefit after a 2014 workplace spinal injury and Collier said she stayed at home to look after him and Annaleyne. Collier did cleaning work for a bit but it was hard for her to find jobs with hours that worked around her daughter.
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CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
Danene Collier found out she had terminal cancer in 2018.
Then, Collier was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer after a stroke, in June 2018. Collier was hospitalised for surgery and radiation, at Hamilton, 40 minutes from their home. The associated travel costs saw their benefits stretched, as Plunkett and Annaleyne travelled twice daily to the hospital, paying for parking and food.
"There's no way I could pay the rent and go and see Danene as well," Plunkett said.
Collier agreed: "We just couldn't afford to pay the bills."
When Collier was in hospital, the $180-a-week rent for the family home fell into serious arrears. By the time they were evicted in August 2018 they owed almost $3600, which the Tenancy Tribunal ordered Plunkett to pay. There is dispute about why and how the arrears accumulated. The pair's former landlord Neil Gow says the family had paid irregularly for years, and they fell increasingly further behind, despite warnings.
When Stuff visits Collier's motel room - Housing New Zealand's emergency accommodation - she's frail, and wearing multiple layers to keep warm. She moves hesitantly. Collier struggled to find food she could keep down after chemotherapy, and lost 13kg. She questions whether it is worth continuing treatment. "I'm just having a break because I got so sick and I lost so much weight," she said.
Although her prognosis is not good, Collier wasn't told exactly how much time she has, and is trying to stay positive.
To recall her housing situation she has to rely on documentation, rifling through a pile of envelopes inside her large, black handbag looking for the right piece of information, or a note she made to jog her memory. She's forgetful these days.
After the family lost their flat they moved to a caravan park in Te Aroha and lived in a cabin with a queen bed about an arm's length away from bunk beds. Collier and Plunkett thought Work and Income would give them an emergency housing grant but said their benefits had to cover the $370 a week rent for a shared kitchen and bathroom. It was 50 metres to the nearest toilet and Collier was in the throes of chemotherapy. She worried about Annaleyne seeing her so ill.
"My daughter had to watch me run to the toilet and vomit."
Te Aroha Holiday Park owner Anna Blattler said the park is on the approved supplier list for Work and Income, and tried to help people on a short term basis when asked. It had cheaper rates for caravans or smaller cabins, depending on availability. Weekly prices work out at less than the nightly rate, and include power and internet.
Plunkett applied, and received, extra support to cover rent, and they often survived on food parcels. Work and Income gave them several grants over a short period. In September 2018, to save on travel costs and to be closer to the hospital, they moved to a Hamilton motel thanks to a Work and Income emergency housing grant.
The grants are a kind of backstop for people who urgently need somewhere to sleep and have run out of options. Work and Income can give grants - which don't have to be repaid - to cover accommodation like a hostel or motel. The grants are for up to a week at a time, but can be extended. They've been available since 2016 and, in the first three months of 2019, the Government spent $23 million on them. About $3.6 million of that was in the Waikato.
Each week, when Collier and Plunkett renewed the grant, they hoped the motel wasn't full. If it was, they had to move again. Since moving to Hamilton, she and Annaleyne lived in four motels where Collier missed the little things like "just having some space to be able to cry if I want to". There were no home comforts like a clothesline, grass, a hob to cook on, or a standard-size fridge. Once she and Plunkett spilt, she estimated the motel costs left her and Annaleyne with $160 a week to live off after rent.
In November 2018, the trio was put up in transitional housing - a kind of step between emergency housing and a permanent place. It is short-term accommodation managed by Government-contracted groups which support people into longer-tem housing. Residents pay up to 25 per cent of their income in rent. But the transitional housing stint didn't last long, after Collier was asked to leave the transitional housing following a dispute with the provider, Emerge. Emerge said Collier broke the rules by having guests at the motel.
Collier and Plunkett split up during this period, but he still spends much of his time helping her and Annaleyne, and Collier and Annaleyne went back to emergency housing grants.
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
The shift to Hamilton East was Danene's fifth since moving to town less than a year ago - but she says it was a good one.
Hamilton East MP David Bennett has heard of people spending nine months or more in motels, some of them with young children, and the circumstances can often be something simple. "Many people have had something go wrong health-wise, or a job."
He doesn't want to lay the blame with Housing NZ or Work and Income, who work closely with his office, because generally they did a "fantastic job in very difficult circumstances".
That said, there are some people in motels long-term, who should be in homes. Hamilton's lack of state housing, and overall supply, bore down too.
The Government has been trying to build more state houses, including smaller units, but Bennett would like the private rental market to be more open to the people he's seen miss out, such as recent migrants, or larger families. Anyone struggling with housing should talk to their local MP for extra support, he said.
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
Danene Collier tries to stay positive but "sometimes it gets pretty bloody hard".
Housing New Zealand will invest $5.6 billion in its housing stock up to June 2022, to increase it by 1100 homes every year. Currently 2700 state homes are under construction. Hamilton will get 110 new public homes over the coming 18 months, which Housing NZ said would go "a significant way" towards housing people and families in need in Hamilton. The first tranche, 46 homes, was planned for Maeroa, Forest Lake and Frankton.
Work and Income agreed Collier's wait for a home was frustrating for her.
"It's great that Danene now has a Housing New Zealand home," Waikato regional commissioner Te Rehia Papesch said. "There is much demand for public housing across New Zealand from many clients with high needs but housing is in short supply."
The Ministry of Social Development assessed Collier as having a high need, recognising her terminal illness and circumstances.
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said Collier's wait "unfortunately" reflected the housing demand in Hamilton.
"MSD have been working to ensure that while she was waiting for a Housing New Zealand home that she was able to access other forms of public housing."
The current Government has added 2380 public housing places since coming in to office, Sepuloni said.
"We will keep working hard to ensure that people who need it can access a warm, safe and dry place to stay."
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
Danene's daughter, Annaleyne, was over the moon to have a real house.
Collier and Annaleyne's move into their Housing New Zealand permanent home this week was their fifth move in a year - but the best. "That was a good (one)," Collier said. "I'm grateful to have a roof over my head but they [the system] certainly haven't made it any easier on me."
There was "bulls... and drama" along the way, she said, but she did meet some nice people in the emergency housing, who stopped in to help or check on her.
Plunkett hopes to be signed up as Collier's home help, so he can help her with walking and bathing. "It's only going to get worse - and who wants a stranger there?"
Annaleyne is over the moon to have a real home, Collier said, and it's somewhere to have Christmas.
They appreciate it in a different way after spending the best part of a year living in one room, often without proper cooking facilities. She was reluctant to believe it until the keys were in her hand.
"My heart's smiling," Collier said. "A good result to a really bad story. Not quite a fairytale, but it didn't end up being a horror... a forever horror anyway."
Sunday Star Times
