Jane*, 60, has moved into her stunning, city-centre studio apartment in Dunedin. It is one of 30 within the converted Loan and Mercantile building behind the Dunedin Railway Station, and she is amazed at her luck. She struggles with mental illness and was homeless for years.
"Never in a million years did I think I would get to live somewhere like this and call it home.
"It is a fantastic location, so close to town and all my appointments."
The five-star apartments, opened last month, are on an upper floor and accessed from a long corridor lined with art.
They could be short-term rentals for high-paying hotel guests but instead are occupied by people previously without a safe or permanent home who have signed long-term tenancy agreements.
A lift carries residents down to a reception that is staffed — but only during office hours — by a Salvation Army Social Homes (Sash) tenancy manager.
There are no health or social support services in the building.
It would be convenient to imagine that everyone offered a apartment accepted it and want it as their forever home, but that is unrealistic.
The complexities of some people’s needs, over-stretched social services, and changing circumstances in people’s lives, make this unlikely.
A similar building in Auckland called HomeGround is housing formerly homeless people, but is operating with a stark difference — it provides health and social support within the building, yet still has tenant turnover.
When the Otago Daily Times explains HomeGround’s provision of on-site support to Mercantile residents, they say the same thing: "Wow".
People who have suffered homelessness can have a serious need for tailored, trauma-informed support, including for mental and physical illness, addictions, head injuries and disabilities, criminal convictions and tumultuous backgrounds, such as family harm and isolation.
At least one homeless person turned down an offer to live at the Mercantile.
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times through a translator, Ali*, a former refugee who cannot speak English, was in transitional housing when he received a text from the Salvation Army saying he had been accepted into the Mercantile and offering "congratulations".
He then got another text telling him to attend an appointment "to get your key".
He turned up, and said no — a decision based on fear.
"I saw a lot of people [incoming tenants at the Mercantile], but I was afraid.
"They had tattoos on their faces and bodies."
In a text message to Emerge, the charity responsible for managing him into transitional housing, Ali said: "I rejected [the Mercantile] because this is not a home; it is like a hotel or a prison."
People offered a Sash home are selected for diversity, national tenancy operations manager Jasmine Herewini says.
The average age of residents continues to drop every year since it changed a rule of only housing people aged 55 or older.
This diversity means "many feel they are a part of a community and feel supported in our homes".
Ms Herewini calls residents whanau, not tenants. The challenge in the Mercantile is to bring people together in the kind of space "where you don’t have a back yard and it is more or less a hotel".
She then points to the obvious: "Combined with how it is built, you are on a floor with people you don’t know, with a lot of complexities — and that is when we say to whanau ‘give us an opportunity to build community’."
Ms Herewini acknowledges that these complexities mean support can be required.
She paints a dim picture of social service provision outside the walls of the Mercantile and across New Zealand.
"We are concerned across the country that funding is getting tight for social service agencies, as this will lead to a lack of support for people in need."
Ali, who lived in social housing until his marriage collapsed in 2020, has slipped through the social support net.
He slept in his car and couch surfed for three years, while thinking he was on the waiting list for a social home. He wasn’t.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) said Ali told the agency in 2020 that he was single, but he was neither added to the waiting list nor given an accommodation supplement.
Ali told them he was only paying a low rent, so the agency calculated he didn’t qualify.
It wasn’t until September 2023 that the agency says it became aware of a need to house him.
There is now a waiting list for the Mercantile apartments, but Ms Herewini does not discount Ali’s choice to decline as either unusual or ungrateful.
Rather, she emphasises, "living here is not for the faint hearted ... We always knew we will have whanau that turn it down based on their own thoughts and feelings and that is OK."
Sash went to efforts to "paint a picture" of what it was offering, she said, but she was not part of the team that contacted Ali.
When prospective whanau raised reservations, her approach was to ask them to reflect on their current living arrangements.
"How safe is it? Can you cook and shower when you want? Give us an opportunity and we will show you [the difference]."
Jane’s old living arrangements had presented risk.
After 28 years of marriage to a husband who died unexpectedly, she spent time at Wakari Hospital and then moved to a dilapidated Dunedin boarding house for six years.
"It was terrible ... awful ... but rents are extraordinary and this was the only affordable option.
"For some reason there was lino on the walls — hanging off — and holes in the concrete floor."
There were shared facilities and she was the only woman.
Jane, who was in and out of foster care as a child and then diagnosed with complex PTSD, says she became "isolated — I only felt safe in my room".
She had reservations when offered a Mercantile apartment.
"I’m a really quiet person and I told them I’d lived in a boarding house for a long time.
"I was nervous about seeing so many people."
Sash was able to reassure her that she would be self-contained.
The owner of the building, Russell Lund, who partnered with Sash to launch the apartments, named them the Suzanne Lund Community Loft Apartments after his wife and has hotel apartments on another floor, accessed via a different entrance.
Standards across the whole building are high and Jane praises the facilities, including her "amazing" shower.
"I had to practically run around to get wet in the shower where I used to live."
Jane invited the ODT into her apartment. There is a sneak view of the harbour if you sit next to the window.
Jane says it is a calming bonus — some other apartments look out on to walls and roofs.
She wears a woolly hat and and there is a chill in the air — she is responsible for the heating bill and the heater is off, despite it being winter.
She says she has good support.
It comes from health professionals, including her GP and mental health workers, and the Mercantile tenancy manager "is the perfect person. She is genuinely kind and wants the best for everyone, but wouldn’t take any nonsense. She has gone out of her way to get to know everyone and things going on for them. We have all got different needs".
Jane has met some of her corridor neighbours, when vaping outside, and describes them as "lovely and all having a story".
One of them, Pauline*, has suffered from depression and bulimia, which "nearly killed me ... I’ve tried to take my life a few times".
She hopes to get back into the work force now she has a stable home. She has pinned the word "love" to her wall and her bed is made to show-home standards.
She says she was surrounded by "dodgy people" in the down-market transitional housing where she was living previously.
"I get blown away by some of the stories here. It is humbling.
"Some have turned their lives around since jail and don’t drink or take drugs any more ... We have got some people here who will break the rules ... but there are always the tell-tales."
She says the tenancy manager is "hard but fair".
Another resident, Dave*, was also happy to show off his apartment. He said he was previously in a "terrible private rental in South Dunedin" for four years, paying $500 a week, but the "landlord wouldn’t fix anything — he was a rogue".
Dave ended up there after partially losing his eyesight, which he needed for work.
He describes the pressure on support services as "crazy", including for his medical condition.
"Services here are not what what people think they are ... It is tricky, very hard."
Back at reception, Ms Herewini describes the tenancy manager role as "mama bear for the whanau ... who they can put their trust in".
She also says that "our whanau know Sash staff didn’t come down with the last rain shower".
The message seems to be that Sash tenancy managers are maternal and tough.
"We are not perfect. We do have naughty whanau, but we work with them regardless and are the auntie on the marae"
The building’s tenancy manager Natasha Durst says she comes to work feeling lucky and there is a "closeness of conversation — it gets deep".
She is developing the downstairs room next to reception to enable whanau to eat together, chat or play games and has started providing an urn of soup.
Ms Herewini says the "door is always open" — but it’s not — the building does not have tenancy management 24/7.
She says support provided outside the building can be a good thing — the "separation can be quite good".
Joined-up support is something Dunedin City Council principal policy adviser for housing Gill Brown has been flagging as important to tackle the homelessness crisis.
When the ODT arrived at the Mercantile, Ms Herewini was busy at a laptop, researching Dunedin charities that offer sustaining tenancies, a service, government-funded, that aims to help tenants keep their home.
Later, Ms Durst talked of a "jammed waiting list" for some support and some whanau struggled to accept support.
Jane, for one, expects to stay.
A traditional Maori woven mat she made as mental health therapy hangs on a brightly coloured wall.
"It looks like it was always meant to be here," she says.
