Auckland City Mission’s new base of operations opened during the hard times of inflation and Covid-19 but that has proven to be lucky timing
One of downtown Auckland’s newest high-rises has a function that’s never been seen before in New Zealand.
Instead of commercial offices or fresh lock-up-and-leaves for cashed-up urbanites, the 11-storey building on Hobson Street is there to provide a space for the city's homeless to live, heal and get on with life.
HomeGround, the new Auckland City Mission facility, first opened its doors three months ago, and is coming to the end of its first season providing permanent housing, health and social services for Aucklanders living on the streets or struggling to make ends meet.
It’s the culmination of more than a decade of planning and construction, funded half by central and local government, with the remainder from individuals, companies and trusts.
Staff say the new space has already made a big difference to their ability to provide the services for which the Mission is known.
It’s the first time the Mission has been in on the landlord game at this magnitude, with 80 apartments across five floors ready to be rented to previously homeless tenants.
Around a quarter of the rooms have been filled at this point, with tenants putting together their weekly rent of about $450 per week from benefits and government support via the Ministry of Social Development and the income rent relief subsidy.
For the Mission and the people it serves, it’s a new space but also a homecoming.
The site at 140 Hobson St has housed the charity for decades. General manager of health and social services Jacqui Dillon said coming back to Hobson St after their interim stay in temporary digs on Union St was emotional.
“Coming back to 140 Hobson Street was a really significant moment as the Mission has been at this address for decades,” she said. “We had a hīkoi down and it was an experience of a whānau returning home.”
And coming at the tail-end of two years characterised by rising costs of living and Covid restrictions, it might be just in time for the city's most vulnerable residents.
"Covid has been hard for everyone, but it was particularly hard for individuals who already suffer day-to-day from inequities," she said. "Our numbers have definitely increased, and demand for food parcels has quadrupled."
The new project takes a leaf out of the book of housing for the unhoused projects such as Breaking Ground in New York City, which began by renovating an old hotel in midtown Manhattan, which now provides a place to live for almost 700 residents.
Similar projects have been seen around the world, such as Brisbane Common Ground - a 14-storey apartment building in South Brisbane with 146 apartments.
A City Mission spokesperson said while HomeGround was clearly inspired by some of these other initiatives, the Mission hoped take it even further - improving certain aspects while adding a specifically Aotearoa flavour.
It’s obvious enough from the architecture, much of which seems to echo the deep reds and ochre of wharenui gables. Several of the rooms have pitched ceilings, bringing the marae to mind as well as suggesting a suburban home as opposed to a commercial or industrial tower block.
Each of the residential floors has been named after a stratified element of New Zealand’s natural landscape - from the moana (sea) to rangi (sky). The five floors have large pieces of artwork donated and painted by Kiwi artist John Reynolds.
He also hand-painted the floor’s name on each apartment door, replacing the institutional look of numbered signs.
The Mission spokesperson said keeping an institutional feel out of the building was crucial. The last thing HomeGround wanted was to remind potential tenants of prisons or mental health units.
Attention to the granular details of design seems to have been put at a premium when HomeGround was being designed, with signposts pointing out the facility’s different services coming with rounded edges instead of the usual squares and rectangles in order to sustain a sense of warmth and human-ness.
On top of providing housing, the facility is also home to the Mission's Calder Health Clinic, which has a growing patient list of around 1700, with capacity to take up to 3,000 patients including nearby apartment dwellers and city workers. Some floors above is a substance withdrawal inpatient clinic, run in concert with the Waitematā District Health Board.
The dining hall serves up 170 to 350 hot meals every morning.
In the long process it took for the facility to go from an idea to a reality, there was certainly time to think about details like this.
The Mission team and its supporters were planning and building HomeGround for more than a decade before its opening in February.
But just because the facility was ready didn’t mean everything was going to be plain sailing. One week after the doors opened in February, the public walkway that acts as the central spine of the building was closed due to Covid restrictions.
“What brings the building alive and makes it alive is the wairua of the people,” Dillon said. “And all of a sudden we went from energy to almost an absence of people as a result of how we were having to operate."
So the first period of operation for HomeGround was characterised by skeleton crews of staff and takeaway food services - not the full jump to serving the masses one might have expected.
But it seems a gradual progress towards full service is not seen as a bad thing at the Mission. Although only around a quarter of the rooms have residents at the moment, staff said there was no major hurry to fill them.
Instead, it was important that they found and selected people who would fit in well in the building, ready to be part of the community as well as able to manage the independence of solo apartment dwelling.
“There is strong demand, but one of the things we work hard to do is ensure that we are able to offer the best match between the individual’s needs and the type of housing that we are providing,” Dillon said. “Because this is a supportive housing model, the complex is designed with a higher level of need in mind.”
Much of the space is ready to be well-used - a rooftop greenhouse with space for some inner-city crops and a non-denominational quiet space referred to as ‘the heart of the building’ that feels like a cross between a sound-proofed tabernacle and a whare.
Spaces like this feel deliberately meditative - or as Dillon described the formation of the whole project, “deliberate and deliberated over”.
The psychogeography doesn’t stop there, with other features the casual passersby may glance over that may mean a better chance of healing for the people using the Mission’s services. There’s the near-constant use of large window panes in place of walls on the ground floor, creating an open space without concealed nooks or crannies - done so those struggling with PTSD or paranoia can keep a clear field of view all around them.
Newsroom wasn't able to get any of the new residents on record about their new situation, but it was clear that those walking through the doors were moved by what was on offer. Dillon said one of the biggest things was seeing people enter their own space for the first time when it may not have seemed like a possibility from the street.
“It’s a big change,” she said. “Just to hear someone in their late 60s say I never thought I’d have a home again… then to hear conversations where residents are sharing recipes, or asking each other where to buy tea bags. There’s a huge sense of pride.”
Dillon stressed the facility was there because of Aucklanders helping out, and said it was meant to be a part of the city that was open to everybody, with the the central laneway open for use as a public thoroughfare for anybody heading from Federal Street up to Hobson.
"We want to invite everyone to come and see it," she said.
