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31 Jan 2020 Downtown Community Ministry 96
January Update from DCM - together we can end homelessness
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Housing the homeless
It is definitely the season of change here at DCM. With the launch of two new teams in 2020, we have had a number of new kaimahi join us. In our November update, we spent time with members of our new Outreach team; this year we will also have a chat with some of our Housing First kaimahi.
The front page of this morning's Dominion Post focussed on the homeless crisis in Wellington and included an interview with DCM Director Stephanie McIntyre. As Stephanie observes "We've got more resources and wrap-around support but no bricks and mortar." You can read the article here. With this in mind, the first Housing First kaimahi we are going to get to know better is Peni Fiti.
Meet Peni
We have already introduced you to Peni Fiti, whose role within the Housing First team is focused on the procurement of suitable houses for people who have been homeless for a long period of time. This month we had a chat with Peni, and got to know a little more about him.
Talofa Peni! Well, it’s been six months now since you joined the team here. What have you most enjoyed about your time at DCM so far?
That would have to be getting to know our taumai, and especially seeing some of them move in to permanent housing. Equally I’ve enjoyed getting to know our staff – we’ve got a pretty cool bunch of people here!
What are your goals for 2020?
I want us to have agreed the lease of 30 properties for our Housing First programme. We CAN do this – but only with the support of all the communities and individuals who support DCM. And in a personal space, my key goal is to exercise more regularly.
When people ask you how they can be part of the solution to homelessness, what do you suggest?
Lease a property to Housing First - or if you don’t have a property, then spread the word to your friends who do (own a rental or investment property). Many people don’t know they can lease their rental property to a CHP (a Community Housing Provider) to support those who are currently homeless, providing them with a home. I love explaining to them how this works – give me a shout out if you would like to know more!
What’s on your bucket list?
Watch a heavyweight boxing title fight live in Las Vegas.
What’s your favourite...?
Food? Malaysian food. Waiata? E i Hoa. Sport? Rugby/boxing – can’t split the two. Film? Starsky and Hutch. Way to spend a Saturday in Wellington? Princess Bay sunset with the aiga - bonfire, bbq and beer *weather permitting of course.
At DCM we often share “moments” from our interactions with taumai. What’s a special “moment” you enjoyed sharing with others?
We recently housed a taumai who had lived on the streets for many years. When I asked him what he was looking forward to most in his new home, he replied, “I can’t wait to cook a steak on my own oven”. He was an ex-chef and I don’t think he had cooked for himself for a while (possibly years). It reminded me that I can’t take anything for granted, and I must always be grateful. And of course, it’s a reminder of the amazing things that we can achieve together.
If you would like to be part of this, to have a chat with Peni, or have him come and meet with your community, group or business, do get in touch.
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Medical and Dental support for our taumai
The generosity of the medical professionals who volunteer their time enables us to offer a dental service, physiotherapy, audiology and ophthalmology appointments here at DCM. In 2019, we were able to provide 190 dental treatments, 30 audiologist, 36 eye doctor and 58 physiotherapy appointments for our taumai.
The stories below give some idea of how significant these supports are in the lives of the most vulnerable people in our city.
Meet Jeff
Photo by Helen Mitchell.
J has been rough sleeping for some time; he has been coming to Te Hāpai most days and is now working with our Housing First team to access housing. His physical health has been seriously impacted by his rough sleeping and substance use, along with a serious long-term health condition. J has had several appointments with our physiotherapist, Jeff, to address the pain and discomfort he experiences because of his rough sleeping and multiple health challenges.
P is one of our older taumai with a long history of homelessness. He has been working with DCM over many years; he is currently housed and has the support of our Sustaining Tenancies team to enable him to sustain his housing. Due to a violent incident some years ago, he has very significant mobility issues.
Initially, P was too embarrassed to receive treatment from Jeff, but was prepared to have a chat with him. As a result of this connection and P’s strong relationships with other DCM kaimahi, P was later willing to receive much-needed treatment from Jeff for his leg. A fiercely independent man, the range of supports which DCM has been able to offer him have further strengthened our relationship with him, and he is in a good space in his whare.
Meet our dentists
Photo by Chris Bing.
One vulnerable man, M, has been a long term Night Shelter resident, with significant mental health issues. He is supported by the TACT team and has also been attending Te Hāpai for some years now. A quiet man, as he has begun to build connection with our kaimahi, he has opened up more. This month we had a gap in our dental appointments, and invited him to see the dentist. He hadn’t complained about the pain he was experiencing, but the dentist discovered that he needed some urgent work. M was really pleased with the treatment he received from dentist Ruth. As a result, he has shared more with us and is engaging with DCM services.
DCM assisted R with housing many years ago; a toothache brought him back to us this month. He needed several extractions; dentist Ceri extracted one quarter of his teeth in that appointment; another appointment has been made for him here at DCM and we will be supporting him to get dentures. While he was chatting to Ceri, he opened up about how unhappy he was in his whare and how he was planning to exit his tenancy and to “sleep under a bridge for a while”. Ceri immediately raised this with the DCM team. After his appointment he had a chat with DCM kaimahi Alan who supports Wellington City Housing tenants to sustain their tenancies. With the support of DCM, R is now working through the issues he is experiencing so that he can sustain his tenancy.
Meet Lisa
Photo by John Williams.
After a long period of rough sleeping and couch surfing, M was housed by DCM in a Wellington City Housing tenancy and has successfully maintained his tenancy for more than a year now. DCM kaimahi had noticed that M was difficult to speak with, and struggled to hear. M saw our audiologist Lisa as a walk-in appointment. He was intoxicated and not able to undertake a hearing test; however Lisa was able to remove ear wax. M’s hearing continued to be a challenge, and at the next audiology session, he was in the right space to complete a hearing test. This revealed that he is profoundly deaf. Lisa has fitted M for hearing aids and these have been ordered for him – at no cost to him.
L is one of DCM’s most challenging taumai; he has been in and out of housing, has many health challenges and has worked with DCM over many years. L saw Lisa at DCM; to our surprise, she discovered that he is very deaf and has been all his life. As a child, this was a major barrier to learning and he cannot read or write; this is something that he is intensely embarrassed by. This makes his dealings with housing and Work and Income even more difficult.
Meet Paul
Photo by Mary Hutchinson.
T has been struggling to maintain her Housing New Zealand tenancy and has been supported by our Sustaining Tenancies team, along with a mental health service. She came in to see our eye doctor because her glasses had broken. Paul was able to provide a check-up which revealed that the reading glasses she had been using were not sufficient for her. She has significant short-sightedness and needs new glasses, which Paul has been able to provide for her. T was also delighted to receive a much-needed dental appointment for a toothache.
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How you can help
Will you become one of our regular supporters - the wonderful group of people who have set up a monthly AP to support our work with people who are homeless?
Can you put us in touch with people or groups who own rental properties?
We also urgently need more dentists and dental assistants to become part of the team at the DCM Dental Service. Next time you visit your dentist, please ask if she or he volunteers at DCM. If the answer is yes, then thank them and lift them up for the important work they are doing for people who are homeless. If not, maybe you can encourage them to get in touch with us.
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Please help us get the message out there! Forward this email on to everyone you can think of who may be interested in how to respond to homelessness, and just generally people who are passionate about Wellington.
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Read More Success Stories
Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi
With your basket and my basket, the people will thrive
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Accepted from DCM alerts archive
54 months ago
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Tagged as: media rugby business beer dental planning wellington art housing boxing people
27 Jul 2018 Downtown Community Ministry 96
DCM Bookfair 2018 - One Week to Go!
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Saturday 4 August, Shed 6, Queen's Wharf, 8am-6pm.
DCM Bookfair 2018 - One Week to Go!
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DCM's annual, fundraising Bookfair is ONE week away!
Saturday 4 August, Shed 6, Queen's Wharf, 8am-6pm.
Wellington's annual DCM Bookfair has been raising funds for vulnerable Wellingtonians for 23 years - but unless a new storage venue is found, this year's event will be the last. Our thanks to Lee-Anne Duncan for this story, published in today's Your Weekend.
There's never a shortage of donations but the storage unit DCM has relied on will not be available next year, leaving the future of the book fair in doubt.
Every year, book lovers flock to the DCM Bookfair on Wellington's waterfront to grab an armful of bargains in support of vulnerably housed citizens. But unless a new storage venue is found, this year's event will be the last. Lee-Anne Duncan reports.
It's catnip to bibliophiles, that smell. It's the bouquet of books, heavy with dust and knowledge, to be stacked and sorted, packed then transported to Wellington's Shed 6 for next Saturday's DCM Bookfair.
This year is the 23rd time hundreds of volunteers have poured thousands of hours into collecting, sorting, boxing and setting out nearly 100,000 books for the country's biggest book fair. The event is also DCM's biggest single fundraiser. Formerly known as the Downtown Community Ministry, DCM works "at the serious end" of homelessness. Along with supporting people to find sustainable accommodation, DCM provides a variety of services to support vulnerable Wellingtonians.
The organisation calls the people they work with "taumai", meaning "to settle", preferring it to the less personal "client". While DCM receives funds from local and central government to carry out some of its work, donations and fundraising events like this one are its lifeblood. If this book fair is as successful as those past, a near quarter century of book fairs will have collectively raised at least $2 million to fund DCM's work.
"That's $2 million we haven't had to ask of central or local government agencies," says Stephanie McIntyre, DCM's director for the past 14 years.
"The only reason we have been able to raise that money is through the generosity of Wellingtonians who donate their books, the people who buy them, and of course the volunteers who give their time to make it all happen."
A fundraiser's success often comes down to those volunteers, especially for an event as large and complex as DCM's annual book fair. But this year's event might be its last, as the planned development of Shelly Bay means the Wellington City Council-owned warehouse used to store and sort donated books won't be available next year.
"All this is absolutely at risk," says McIntyre.
"We have had zero response trying to find another warehouse. We'd love to have another book fair as it's become such a classic Wellington thing and it's essential fundraising for us. Next year is our 50th birthday and it would be a great shame not to have a book fair in such an important year."
DCM director Stephanie McIntyre.
Many – if not most – of the fair's volunteers give their time year after year. A core group of about 30 helpers travel to the warehouse on Thursdays or Saturdays, or both, for generally five or six hours a day every week between April and August. There, wrapped up against the winter chill, they receive donations, sort the books into categories, then into subcategories, and sometimes even into micro-categories.
"I've found quite a few books on grief. I'm hoping I can get enough together to make a section of its own," says long-time volunteer Wendy Nelson.
"And I've got all these diet books. This year we seem to have a lot of paleo books."
Spirited exchanges have been known to happen over categories. All Blacks Don't Cry by John Kirwan, for example: "Is that sport or mental health? I even found copy in Psychology earlier," says Nelson.
If there's more than one copy – and often there is – the books can be allotted wherever book seekers may think to find it. A marine biologist, Nelson works full time as a principal scientist at Niwa but spends her Saturdays sorting. She's been involved in the book fair every year since the first, in 1996.
"The then director, Helen Walch, said she'd had this great idea to hold a second-hand book fair as a fundraiser that would engage the volunteers and community.
"I thought it sounded like a good idea – I like books, so why not get involved? DCM does such important work, and is such an important part of Wellington. Sometimes it's hard to know how to contribute, but this is a way for us to do our own small bit."
Volunteer Wendy Nelson, a marine biologist and book lover.
Each year DCM supports about 1000 people who are experiencing homelessness or in danger of becoming homeless. But the work DCM does goes far beyond putting a roof over their heads.
Every DCM day begins with a karakia and waiata. DCM kaimahi (staff) and their taumai gather to give thanks for the new day at 9am when the organisation's doors open in Te Aro's Lukes Lane. Social workers are on hand to talk to taumai to get to the heart of why they're experiencing homelessness. They support the person to access a benefit and manage their money, find and sustain housing, and connect to whānau and culture, health and other services.
Statistics New Zealand defines homelessness as: "Living situations where people with no other options to acquire safe and secure housing are without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing accommodation with a household, or living in uninhabitable housing."
Research by Otago School of Medicine in 2016 put the number of New Zealanders living this way at more than 40,000 people, nearly 1 per cent of our total population – the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD.
It's difficult to accurately quantify homelessness. During this year's census, DCM staff worked with Statistics NZ staff to encourage and support people who were homeless to complete the census forms.
"We explained that government funding decisions are made on census data, so filling out the census made sure they were counted," says McIntyre.
DCM's own data vividly describes the increase in demand. Over the past five years, the number of people who are homeless that come to DCM for support has increased by more than a third.
"Even more worrying, the number of people we see who are actually without shelter – so rough sleeping, or sleeping in cars – has more than doubled."
McIntyre expects the number of people DCM supports to increase this year.
"When you get a severe housing crisis, as we have now, it's the most vulnerable who are kicked to the end of the line. As housing gets harder for everyone it gets especially hard for these people, which makes our work even more necessary."
In May, the Government announced $100 million to address homelessness – $37 million of that was allocated to find places by the end of this winter, with the rest spent over four years on the Housing First programme. While DCM will be at the forefront of delivering Housing First in Wellington, the organisation will continue to rely on volunteers and donations to pay for its core services.
We visit four Saturdays from sale day. There's a stiff nor'wester whipping the waves a few metres from the warehouse. Out in the harbour, a rare southern right whale is leading the news. Te Amo Roberts, another volunteer and someone DCM has supported, reports he saw the whale on his way in. He stirs himself a coffee between breaking down cardboard boxes and helping with some of the "grunt work".
Volunteer Te Amo Roberts received assistance from DCM in the past. Today, he's an important part of the book fair team.
"There are some biscuits on the sideboard, Te Amo – Cameo Cremes," says McIntyre, who's holding a brief meeting with a small group of volunteers, a long, tightly written to-do list on her crossed knee.
Cut sandwiches and fruit are boxed on the sideboard, along with those Cameo Cremes. Everyone knows a volunteer army sorts and packs on its stomach.
Most of the fair's book-sorting volunteers stick to their areas of expertise – a retired anaesthetist is set to work deciding which medical books are still useful, and a war buff flicks through the military books. They determine which books will sell and for how much, which subjects are likely to be "in"' this year, and which – judging by the number of those donated – are on their way out.
The volunteers' knowledge also means they're well-placed to spot a valuable book. Then, with the aid of local auction house expertise and internet bookseller searches, a price is applied and the book is included in the high-value stack. "We do get some amazing finds where people might not have realised they've gifted us an extraordinary treasure, but we have no way of reuniting it with its owner," says McIntyre, who, drawing on her own pre DCM music industry career knowledge, found a rare Beatles book some fairs back.
"At the same time I'm sure we've had books we've sold for $2 that may have been worth hundreds. But you've got to be philosophical."
A hand-drawn diagram of the Shed 6 book fair layout is pinned to the wall. Each table has a number assigned to a book category: children's, history, health, fiction (so much fiction), New Zealand, art, and so on. The more work done now, the better 100 or so volunteers on set-up day know exactly where everything fits. Taking too many books to fit a category's allocated section would lead to chaos – setting out 90,000 books is a precise science.
"We've got a phenomenally good offering of children's books this year, so we've had to shuffle up some other things to accommodate that," says McIntyre, scrutinising the diagram.
"The foreign languages are fine but the music is the big headache at the moment," says one volunteer, popping in to give McIntyre a quick update on her areas.
The team is following a packing plan with scheduled revision points. According to the plan, by this day 75 per cent of books must be sorted, tallied and packed on pallets (each holding about 800 books) ready for transportation to Shed 6 at dawn the day before fair day.
With clipboard in hand, Alexi Manouilenko is responsible for the tally. DCM stepped in when he needed support a couple of years ago, which led to him volunteering on fair day in 2016.
"As well as wanting to give back to DCM, I'd been out of work for a while and people are reluctant to hire you when you don't have anything to explain your time off. I realised the best way to get back into work was to volunteer to show I could work. I already knew DCM so I volunteered for two years. That led to some paid work and now I have a full-time job with DCM."
Part of Manouilenko's job is to decide how many books in each category should go to the fair and use his maths skills to keep tabs on the packing.
"I look at the previous two years to see how many books were taken in each category and how many were sold. From that I try to guess at what we should take this year, and I tell the volunteers how many boxes in each category to pack."
This level of organisation is why DCM must close the book on donations four weeks out from the fair. Even on the last day, every few minutes book-toting donors poke their heads around the peeling-painted door.
"I just want to drop some books," says a man, setting down his burden.
"Thank you, mate," says McIntyre. "Come to the fair and buy a whole lot more, won't you?"
Surely he will – book lovers only clear their shelves to fill them with new finds.
While the DCM Bookfair is certainly about finding new homes for old books, it's also about raising funds to support marginalised Wellingtonians into homes of their own.
Nelson remembers when the team was ecstatic to raise $15,000 – now the book fair raises around $100,000, which goes directly into funding DCM's work with people experiencing homelessness. It's that work, as well as their shared love of books, that motivates the volunteers.
Volunteer Tamara Morton with stacks of books ready for the fair.
Tamara Morton is a consulate advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but spends her Saturday mornings in the warehouse's fiction section, estimating the book-buying public's appetite for Philippa Gregory and Dan Brown.
"When I was living overseas, circumstances happened that I found myself looking for a place to live. It was short-lived and I've never been truly homeless, but I can't forget the anguish that came with thinking, 'What am I going to do? I've got nowhere to go.' To be able to help an organisation with the resources to address that is why I do this for DCM.
"There's also the huge bonus of making connections with people you wouldn't meet in a lifetime of routine days. The people who work here come from all sorts of backgrounds and different stages of life. It's really cute to see the cheeky banter that goes on between a Millennial and a Baby Boomer. It's really delightful to be a part of that."
Nelson is busy assessing travel guides (nothing published before 2010 goes on sale).
"What I love about the book fair is that everyone's winning," she says.
"The people off-loading their books feel they're going to a good place, the people who rock up to the book fair get fantastic bargains, and the people who volunteer get satisfaction from contributing to something. And it's about making connections into the community."
Our thanks to Lee-Anne Duncan for this story, published in today's Your Weekend.
Feel free get in touch with us at DCM over the coming week if you have any questions about the Bookfair on (04) 384 7699 or events@dcm.org.nz
Click Here to Donate Now!
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