Police forensic photographs show how squatters lived in abandoned Wellington building

Photographs taken inside the building by a police forensic photographer after the fire have been handed over to police. Herald Under the Official Information Act, squatters were living in the building before the fire, prompting calls for more to be done to better support those sleeping rough in the capital.

Photos show walls inside the abandoned building covered in graffiti, as well as trash and debris strewn across the floor.

Signs of occupancy include clothes on hangers, shoes, a mattress, pizza boxes, bottles of cologne, Winz payment cards and even a wall clock.

A Nike shoe box sits on the countertop next to a roll of duct tape and a milk cart.

The problem of squatters inhabiting Wellington’s derelict buildings hit the headlines earlier this year after a man fell from the third floor through a collapsed staircase at the boarded-up Pringle House on Wakefield Street.

He was rescued only the next morning, when he was found in serious condition.

Jason Dunn of Prime Property, which owns Pringle House, said there was a “major problem” with homeless people entering the building at the time.

Dunn said the company has spent $30,000 to $40,000 this year on building security improvements to try to prevent squatters and trespassers from gaining access.

Following the Pringle House incident, Wellington city missionary Murray Edridge said hundreds of people were sleeping on the streets and in abandoned buildings in Wellington.

After seeing photographs from the Boys’ Institute building, Edridge said Herald it is a “serious indictment of our community.”

“It’s so sad,” he said. “We have to make sure people have a better place to live than here.”

“This shows that people are desperate.

“It won’t just be the ones that are visible. We see people who are clearly sleeping in rough conditions, we see people who are clearly sleeping in abandoned buildings, but there are a whole range of other people who are sleeping in wagons, carriages and overcrowded houses, all of which are part of the problem of homelessness, with that we face as a community.”

Edridge said it was difficult to estimate the number of people in Wellington experiencing homelessness, but said it would be “in the thousands”.

He believes homelessness is rising in the city, blaming the cost of living, housing costs and limited access to emergency housing.

Edridge said “most people in society are having a harder time than ever.”

Wellington Central Community Ministries (DCM) is an organization that provides social services to people experiencing homelessness in the capital.

DCM senior leader Natalia Cleland said there had been a sharp rise in homelessness recently, saying the situation was getting worse.

“We see a lot of people coming through the doors and new people coming in,” she said.

According to the most recent reports, DCM worked with 264 homeless people from July to September, up from 150 people in the previous quarter from April to June, i.e. by 76%.

The data includes those sleeping on the street, living in cars, squatting, or in transitional or emergency housing.

Cleland said it’s difficult to determine how widespread squatting is because “it’s so hidden.”

She said the latest count of rough sleepers on the streets showed only six people, which was out of proportion to the large number of homeless people using their services.

“We know they’re homeless, but we don’t really see them on the street. We’re pretty sure they don’t couchsurf with other people because when we visit them at home, we don’t see them there.

“We’re putting two and two together, but we’re making some assumptions that these people are in abandoned buildings or other hidden places,” she said.

Cleland said they also hear directly from people about the abandoned buildings they live in.

“We know people are squatting, they tell us so.”

But she says it’s not safe or legal for support workers to enter buildings to help, and often the problem only comes to the fore when something goes wrong, such as when there’s a fire or people are injured.

Cleland said Wellington’s urban belt also had a large homeless population.

Cleland says people often assume homelessness is a choice, but she thinks “it’s actually much more complex” as the vast majority of Wellington’s homeless people have a range of complex needs, including criminal histories, mental health problems, addictions and exes. head injuries. .

“It’s quite complex, it’s quite complex, but generally people come in with a few challenging factors.”

DCM is urging members of the public who spot people squatting in abandoned buildings to report it to council so support services can be dispatched through DCM.

“We really want to know where these people are so we can respond,” Cleland said.

The former Boys’ Institute building, located at 69-71 Tasman Street in Mount Cook, was built over 100 years ago and the foundation stone was laid in 1914.

It was previously home to a boarding house, gym and popular swimming pool, which became the center of controversy over its demolition in 2008.

The stone building sits on a hectare of prime land that Foodstuffs cleared to make way for a supermarket, but those plans never materialized and the site is now owned by the Chinese Embassy, ​​which plans to build a mega-embassy on the site. website.

Early on the morning of the fire, a representative from the Chinese Embassy arrived at the scene and spoke with firefighters.

Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based multimedia journalist. He joined NZME in 2023 and is interested in politics, local issues and public service. Ethan is always looking for a story and you can email him at: [email protected] or posted to X (formerly Twitter) via the handle @etanjmanera.