The bolts are a grim-looking addition so "kids can’t escape", Jan says.
Motel owners Steve and Jan* agreed to repurpose their motel seven years ago for homeless people as part of the government-funded transitional housing scheme.
It was winter, the motel had empty, warm units and Jan says she "couldn’t stand the thought of babies sleeping in cars".
There was a hope social homes would shoot up and the scheme would no longer be needed. Instead, the housing crisis continues and there are still no holiday-makers at Steve and Jan’s.
The moteliers also say people in the scheme are more likely to have complex needs than in the past and are calling for a solution.
"We have noticed a change," Jan says.
"We still get families but we are getting a lot more mental health cases. It seems there is nowhere for them and nobody knows what to do with them."
She queries why there are not more places funded to be run by charities like Pact, providing assisted living for people who cannot manage on their own. Jan says residents can range from lovely to "some really horrible cases".
Steve lays it on the line. "There are people who shouldn’t be here, but they are anyway ... We are not social workers."
Across the South, the average time in transitional housing has increased from about two months to four months, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but some people in Steve and Jan’s motel have been there much longer.
A family of former refugees with six children has been here nearly a year. There just are not social homes available for big families, Jan says.
Small families are struggling too. A couple who arrived with a newborn baby are still waiting for a home seven months later.
One woman, in one of the units, is leaving after only two months to move into a Kainga Ora social home — but it is in Christchurch.
The transitional housing scheme was set up to help homeless people progress into a social home or a private rental, with an aspiration this would happen within three months.
It is hard to imagine staying even that long. The units are clean with functional kitchens and glass showers, but are small and sit huddled in a row, separated by breeze block walls. They are designed for short stays by travellers, not for families or individuals with serious health or social challenges.
A single person, known for excessive hoarding, has been there eight months. Another couple, who have been at the motel for six months, "call ambulances all the time", Steve says.
Another woman, known to have mental health issues and an intellectual disability, has now left, but it took 18 months to find somewhere to go.
‘It can be scary’
People in the transitional housing scheme are sent to the motel by a charity, also contracted by the government under the transitional scheme.
The charity’s job is to provide and co-ordinate support that helps the residents move from the motel into a home.
Steve and Jan say the charity provides people’s names, not their backgrounds, but often their life stories get told, and their challenges emerge, while at the motel.
There are people with illness, criminal records, intellectual disabilities and addictions.
The setup can create fear.
"When we have mentally challenged people in here it is scary," Jan says.
"You don’t know how they are going to react. What are you supposed to do when someone is smashing their head into a brick wall?"
"We had a woman who knew she was meant to walk for her mental health to help her calm down, but when she went out she felt the cars were trying to get her."
District nurses and charities are constantly visiting the motel to try to help people with their complex needs. But health and social services are not there when an emergency arises at 3am or at weekends.
Jan says she has "given up" trying to contact Oranga Tamariki when she thinks a child is at risk because they ask questions she cannot answer and they do not turn up.
Acting Oranga Tamariki chief social worker Nicolette Dickson has recently told the ODT it is "no secret that our workforce is often dealing with large workloads and complex issues, which can at times impact how quickly we are able to respond".
The couple’s default in an emergency is to ring the police. They come.
If people find a place to move to, the charity is contracted to provide ongoing support for 12 more weeks to help them settle. However, some people inevitably need much more than this and end up back at the motel in a merry-go-round of perpetual homelessness.
Steve and Jan are unsure about long-term outcomes for people who stay at the motel.
They mention a man with intellectual disability and mental health issues who stayed for a spell, then went, then came back again — and now they are unsure of his fate. "The sad thing is he isn’t the only one."
A woman who had been an accessory to a murder stayed at the motel for nearly six months, then got a place to stay, was kicked out, and then went to another motel providing transitional housing.
Some people are not allowed back by Steve and Jan, who have a right to refuse to take people. The charity can also refuse to have people in the scheme.
A Ministry of Housing and Urban Development spokesman says two motels in Dunedin are being used for transitional housing.
The service is intended to be available for 12 weeks but can be extended and comes with wraparound support, he says.
"The time taken to achieve a suitable long-term outcome can vary and providers can continue to support households through this time while they remain in transitional housing."
HUD was unable to say how much was being spent on transitional housing in Dunedin.
The spokesman says a new model is being considered where the government "becomes an active purchaser that takes a social investment approach to cost-effectively improving housing outcomes".
‘We don’t get told anything’
People living in far worse circumstances, including in tents at the Oval, often say they have been refused transitional housing. A man died there last December, which charity campaigners branded an "inevitable" outcome.
A suicidal man staying at the motel was offered a hug by Jan and "he clung to me like nobody had ever hugged him for years ... then they took him away to Wakari [hospital] or wherever, for about a week — and then rang and asked if I could have him back.
"I said I’m sorry, I can’t, I would be terrified of going in there and finding he is dead . . . He had tried before."
The government has previously told the Otago Daily Times it cannot provide information about the number of people who have been declined transitional housing, or reasons why.
It could, however, provide information about some of the outcomes of transitional housing.
The figures, revealed by the ODT in May, revealed only 7% of 432 people in the scheme in the South last year were recorded as moving into a social home or private rental, compared with more than 66% seven years ago.
HUD general manager for partnerships William Barris says the data is "not comprehensive".
The outcomes for more than three out of four people in the scheme were unknown.
Steve says there was a week when the police were at the motel nearly every day. There were "fights and people running away — it was awful".
One problem is noise. Steve describes a woman who was on medication and doing well, "but then she [thinks she] doesn’t need to take her medication any more, because she is doing so well. At 3am she decides she will turn the TV up full volume and do karaoke at the top of her lungs."
Eventually, she was taken into the psychiatric facility Ashburn Clinic — but then bounced back to the motel.
The units have meth-testing devices on the walls but Jan acknowledges drugs, mostly marihuana, and alcohol are still used.
There is a no-drinking rule in the courtyard, but excessive drinking behind the units’ closed doors cannot be prevented.
Boxes and boxes of empty bottles have been found.
The long-term future of people who leave the motel and do not come back is unknown to Jan and Steve.
"We don’t get told anything."
The interview closes with the obvious question. Why do they do it?
Jan answers that somebody has to.
A solution must be found to the housing crisis but, in the meantime, "when you have someone falling into your arms because you have given them somewhere to stay it makes it all worthwhile".
*All names changed to protect the vulnerable.
