Helping Masterton's extreme homeless

Homelessness is defined 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.

Although hard to know exact numbers, we currently have around 12 transient or extreme homeless living on our streets, under bridges or where they can find some form of shelter. There are also many we don’t know about – couch surfers, car dwellers and the like. It is really important to understand that issues with health, addiction or changes in life circumstances for these people lead them to living on the streets.

Kims Way Night Refuge will offer a hot evening meal and breakfast, a safe sleeping space and basic sanitary needs. This will be a night refuge for the extreme homeless in Masterton embedded with compassion, dignity and empowerment. It will be a space that embraces inclusivity, based around respect and support without judgement.

We will never elimnate homelesssness, it will always be evident in Masterton, throughout Aotearoa and the world. But if we work together as a community to ensure there are services in place that give these people an oppurtunity to succeed in some shape or form, that's a win for us. With the help from a community as generous as ours, anything is possible.