Mark | Onehunga

“My name’s Mark. Onehunga’s my home. I’ve been here for 29 years. I’ve had a support person come in and help me, in my Housing New Zealand house, and supported me with a lot of things in my house.

He comes and supports me in meetings, with Housing New Zealand, WINZ. A few things like that. It’s very important for me to have somebody. A lot of times when I go to meetings, I can’t talk in the meetings, and I keep my support person to help me talk on my behalf. So yeah, it’s been a great help having a support person there with me.

I’ve actually been brought up in Auckland. I love kids. I love all the kids around. I worked with kids when I was younger. 

At the moment my life’s been hard. I’ve been living off the streets  because everything is so expensive these days food-wise. House and food basically, they’re expensive, too. So those are the things that I find hard these days. 

Support people are very important to me. I don’t see much of my mum, but my friends around me, and my next-door neighbours. They’ll support me. If I’ve got a problem, they’ll come and talk to me, and I’ll talk to them for advice and all that. It’s very important.”