It’s not just about food, it’s about respect and dignity.
About forty club members ate their continental breakfast in the community lounge at the Wellington City Mission’s base in Newtown, a room which normally serves as a daytime drop in centre for the city’s down at heel.
City Missioner Murray Edridge, the first non-ordained priest to hold the role, talked of the work of the Mission and explained that it was about more than helping feed and clothe the homeless, helpless and heartbroken.
“It’s about dignity and respect,” he said.
Covid had forced a change to the way the city mission had operated and its role had been rethought during lockdown.
“It used to be a drop-in centre which served hot meals, but level three lockdown changed that. We discovered that while we couldn’t feed people they got fed elsewhere. What the people who came here missed was companionship.”
The room was re-opened as a community lounge where people can engage with each other and with staff. “In the first six weeks, we had 3 000 people through these doors,” Murray said.
Modelled on overseas best practice, and particularly drawing on the experience of the Wayside Chapel in Sydney the City Mission has an ambitious project to turn a three story building bought for $30 million into innovative social housing.
There will be 35 residential apartments, the offices of the City Mission, a 120 seat public café, and a social supermarket where clients can choose their own food rather than have to accept food parcels where the contents are chosen by others. There will also be a laundry, a chapel, showers, meeting rooms and a medical centre. Its part funded by central government who are contributing $10 million.
Murray said its name would be Whakamaru meaning shelter or protection. Construction would start in April 2021 for completion in September 2022 and would enable the Mission to provide a much better level of service to its clients in Wellington, Murray said.
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