Gary | Ōtāhuhu
“I think I meet those people every day on the street. I’m connected to a lot of people that I don’t know, every day. I even talk to strangers, yeah.
I think the question would be, every day I meet different people, you know, people that I don’t know. I have that connection.
I was born in, born and raised in Auckland and Christchurch. I’ve been on the street since I was 13 years old. I’ve been cleaning car windows for about 30 years. It’s been up and down, but what I, what I learned is that if you’ve got a pair of socks on your feet, and someone don’t have a pair of socks, give them, take off your socks and give it to someone that don’t have a pair of socks, you know, and that’s what I did yesterday. I gave this gang member my socks off my feet, and he was crying. He was in tears. He never had, he felt so much compassion when I, when I gave him my socks, because he said to me he didn’t have any socks, and I took my socks off, and he was practically in tears. Yeah, I didn’t realise it’ll touch him so much by giving him a pair of socks. To me it was like, oh yeah. You know? But to him it was, it was like everything, yeah.
Well, I believe you’ve got to have that connection with people that you don’t know, because there’s too many out there that judge, and there’s only one judge, so the key is not to judge people, and just try and, you know how people say these days have, you can’t have trust in people? Well, you’ve got to have trust when you go to the dentist, don’t ya? You’ve got to trust somebody to do your teeth, you know? So, you’ve got to have that, you’ve got to have a little bit of trust you know? Yeah, the connection that I have on the streets with people, the love, it’s just, I get more love on the street than my own family. I think people on the street would say about 50/50, the most people that are on the street are the most humble people. They look intimidating, but when you meet them, they’re the most humble people, you know? They’ll give you, they’ll give their last two dollars to you, some of the homeless people here in Auckland, and that’s the connection that I’ve, that I’ve experienced, and through window washing I’ve learned to be nice, be humble to people, and if someone’s angry just walk away, yeah.
I was born in Christchurch. Last six months I left Christchurch. I was there for six years, and here I am now in Auckland.”
