Pastor Warren Heke in the new pocket park at St Andrew's Hall. Photo / Jack Riddell
A creative solution to a complicated problem has seen a new space built for Hastings’ homeless whānau.
Kuhu Mai is a wraparound service for Hawke’s Bay’s unhoused community based in Hastings.
It has been operating in the city’s CBD over the past 10 years.
Based out of St Andrew’s Hall
Founder Pastor Warren Heke said people from these businesses would often see behaviours that were confronting while the service’s clients were hanging out on Market St.
“We were looking at solutions and there were suggestions of putting a screen up or doing something to hide our community,” Heke said.
“Then my wife said, ‘well, what if we just turned the whole building around and they had to meet on that side?’”
Heke was initially sceptical that people would want to move.
“But if we had a reason that made them want to be around there and it benefited them, then I’d support it,” he said.
Soon, the idea for the pocket park was born.
On the Lyndon Rd side of the building where car parks once sat now sits an enclosed, sunny space that features tables, chairs, shade and a brand new basketball hoop.
“So it’s been beneficial for our neighbours, because we’ve created a place where our service users feel like and look like they belong,” Heke said.
“It’s also increased the goodwill and our relationship with our neighbours.”
An example Heke gives is the relationship between Kuhu Mai and the business centre next door, Farming House.
Heke said the first year the service was based at St Andrew’s Hall was “pretty confronting” for Farming House owner David Brownrigg.
“He was fielding a lot of issues related to us and then with this park project, he was really supportive and made contributions to it,” Heke said.
“He and I now have this really excellent relationship and he’s dropped off food, he’s brought in clothing, he’s personally done a whole bunch of stuff.”
It’s exciting for Heke to see his community not bringing down or diminishing Hastings as a place to live, but rather building happy connections and relationships with members of the community they may not always engage with.
“I want to treat our neighbours and I want to treat everyone in our community with the same approach I have of these very vulnerable, mistrusting people,” he said.
“That is ‘you have value, you have mana to be respected and you belong’ and I think this is an incredible demonstration of that.”
In its first years of operation, Kuhu Mai was set up on Heretaunga St East, next to the city’s opera precinct.
The service was moved partly because of the state of the building it was in, but also because of the council’s purchase of the building.
Stuff in 2024 reported the council had spent $40 million on the Municipal and Opera House developments and preferred that visitors to it weren’t rubbing shoulders with homeless people.
The building at 315-317 Heretaunga St East was two years later sold for a significantly lower price, which Stuff reported was $150,000.
The building remains vacant.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.
'It's dead. It can’t be sailed. We will need to find a new one.'
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