Jenny Smith has been the co-ordinator at cultural centre Te Whare Roimata in Christchurch Ōtautahi for more than 30 years.

This place is special. Te Whare Roimata is on Gloucester St, towards Linwood.

It is a cultural centre in Otautahi’s inner city east. I am the co-ordinator, and we work with inner city east residents and urban Māori.

I started here in the mid 1980s, after I moved down from Auckland. I was at the Christchurch City Mission at the time and this work grew from the work I was doing there.

Right from the first day we have been a treaty-based organisation.

We hold tangihanga here for people from the street whānau and others in the community who for one reason or another have no whānau or are alone.

I consider it a privilege to be there for them in those last moments when they have no-one else.

Can you see the photographs on the wall? They are all the people who have had their tangihanga here. They are always remembered. No-one is allowed to photograph our wall, of course.

This year our community has had a real fight to keep the local Post Shop on Stanmore Rd open which we managed. It is a really vital part of the community, especially for our older people, that connection and being able to talk to someone means a lot to them, especially since Covid-19.

Some are too frightened to leave their homes at all. It is really quite sad. For many popping to the post office is one of the few times they go out each week. We have wraparound services in there when they do so we can look after them.

In this part of Christchurch there is before the earthquakes and after the earthquakes.

We did a survey and discovered we had lost 300 single-room bedsits in a small block because of the earthquakes. It is still having an effect now on single people living in poverty.

Not having those bedsits, and it was a real community and those people were really connected with one another, mean many people were pushed out into caravan parks.

It completely changed the streets here. The old traditional way of living was to have a couch outside, people stopping to talk to each other. Now there is gentrification and more apartment blocks.

There's a rub there between the people moving in to those new places who don't understand the traditional ways of the neighbourhood.

A lot of people had a hard time accessing the Covid-19 vaccine. There are no medical centres in this area, just clinics, and they weren't allowed to administer it.

We started the gold coin meal as a response to the National party's mother of all budgets in 1991, and it has been running ever since.

People pay a gold coin for a dinner. Everyone gets together and shares a meal. There are fruits and vegetables for low income people but more than that it is a connection for people who are living alone.

There are day projects and other things we do for whānau development and to provide tūrangawaewae. There's the Smith St community garden, we also work in with the Eastside Gallery at the Linwood Community Arts Centre, we have the Under the Tin Roof opshop and the Tiny Shops Village.

Tiny Shops was made with the Christchurch City Council and Greening the Rubble. There are small buildings in a landscaped garden, and we do community-led activities and have a café there. It is a real village.

After more than 30 years at Te Whare Roimata, working in this community, I see how strong people here are.

There is a lot of emphasis in general society on families experiencing poverty, which I understand, but single people living in poverty are often overlooked and many are hurting.

This community has a strong network of people helping people and I think it is why we see a lot of the homeless come back to this part of town.

Those friendships and communities have strong bonds. Finding a sense of belonging when you’re disconnected from your whānau is so important and that is what we try to do here.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/127367931/people-of-the-03-jenny-smith-of-te-whare-roimata