Imagine that, growing up without a home, living day to day, week to week, month to month, never knowing when you might find the next "safe" place to stay. Read more

Manager Jan Rutledge said the number of families they will be providing for at Christmas this year is the most it ever has experienced.

De Paul House was established in the early 1980s out of a concern about the number of families on Auckland's North Shore who were either living in overcrowded circumstances or were homeless.

Members of the St Vincent de Paul society in Northcote transformed the St Dominic's building, which had been used as extra classrooms for the local school, into an emergency housing facility.

The Daughters of Charity of the Australian Province administered the service on behalf of the Diocese and began the emergency housing and family support service in 1986.

De Paul House has over this period developed programmes to assist families with living skills, parenting, early childhood development, preparation for employment and family outreach support.

From its volunteer-led foundations in 1986, it now has a paid workforce of trained professionals.

It is supported by grants from the ministry of social development, the Auckland city council and a number of charitable trusts, foundations and businesses.

Stuff reports that figures show a record number of children will be spending Christmas in Auckland's organisations for the homeless.

Auckland City Mission's chief executive said they were expecting this Christmas to be their most demanding ever.

The organisation had distributed 17,094 emergency food parcels this year, a 27 percent increase on the previous year.

"For people who are struggling 364 days of the year, it is only fair that for one day there is something to celebrate," he said.

"People who cannot afford food on a week-by-week basis cannot afford something special at Christmas, and that's where we and the people of Auckland step in."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• facebook.com
• nzherald.co.nz
• depaulhouse.org.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

A "think tank" was held recently to look at the nature and extent of the problem and how the Church might respond.

Archbishop Douglas Young of Mt Hagen told Radio Australia International that the scale of the problem hasn't been fully identified.

But the archbishop said there are 100 children "on our books", who "AIDs orphans of some type".

"Some are being cared for by older relatives or grandparents; some are living in an independent household," he said.

Local women have been taking in children they consider to be abandoned.

One woman is looking after 14 children and another 20, the archbishop said.

The church is looking at ways it can help them and the girls.

A religious sister is running a care centre for vulnerable young girls.

Archbishop Young said there appears to be a variety of reasons for the homeless children issue including rapid social change and the breakdown of traditional values.

The Mt Hagen archdiocese was alerted to the problem when a girl was rescued after being tortured as a witch.

Her parents were killed in the same way, and all her siblings scattered, so she was "completely vulnerable", Archbishop Young said.

She was eventually accepted into care by religious sisters, but the archdiocese realised it had no system or structure to handle something like this.

But support from government to address the problem is very sparse, Archbishop Young said.

"It does fall back on churches and individuals."

But Archbishop Young said that as a nation, Papua New Guinea can do much better.

Source

• Radio Australia International
• Image: Digicell PNG Foundation

A new Otago University study has used 2006 census data to provide the first measure of homelessness, finding that 34,000 people suffer "severe housing deprivation".

Researchers say the problem has "inevitably" worsened since 2006, with a deepening housing shortage and rising demand for support services.

Far from the stereotype of the grizzled man sleeping on the street, more than half of New Zealand's homeless were under 25, and a quarter were children. Most lived temporarily with friends or family, squeezed into living-rooms or garages, rather than on the streets. Continue reading

The Christchurch City Mission and YWCA say they are inundated with women and children desperately seeking emergency housing - at levels never seen before.

Both say they have to turn away people, with the YWCA having a regular waiting list of on average 50 women plus their children.

Before the earthquakes the YWCA did not have a waiting list - they were never full. Continue reading

Demure Miss Tangmo (Watermelon) tries to be as good and loving as any mum on the planet, but she's only eight, and she worries a lot about her five-year-old brother and the twins. Not that there's really much to worry about there: he's happy and the twins are jolly three-year-old eating machines. Her mum, back in rehab? That's a worry, but it's nothing new.

Like the time the police arrested mum again after she'd been sick and violent on meth and was coming down, on domicum mixed with methadone. Minutes before the police arrived, Tangmo (she prefers to becalled Daeng) had grabbed her younger brother and the twins and ran to the safety of a rickety bamboo-shack karaoke bar under the expressway. She woke up the old man who's always asleep at the door to let them in to hide from mum. It wasn't the first time. She knew the mamasan lady who arrives in the late afternoon would buy them noodles, if she was in a good mood. But they couldn't stay there overnight; the police would think bad things and put the mamasan in jail.

Whenever Daeng runs away, those two scavenger slum dogs who protect her come running — she fed them once and they are loyal for life. They curl up together for warmth all night — all four kids sleep soundly and safe with those two scavenger dogs.

What about hunger? In the morning, there was this nice crippled lady a few shacks away by the railway tracks who hobbles to the temple each morning, seeking left-overs and whatever the monks give to her and other indigents. She always saved a bit of rice for Daeng, brother, the twins — and the two dogs. In the afternoon, it's hit and miss. Continue reading

Sources

• Bangkok Post
• Image: AsiaNews