No vacancies

This morning I went out for a run along Ponsonby Road, starting only about a quarter hour before sunrise. About half way along Ponsonby Road, I saw Jason sitting reading a book. The seat on which he is sitting is set back into a space at the top of a side street off Ponsonby Road; presumably where a building or more was once.

I spoke to him after taking the photo, and gained his permission to keep and show the photo ("That's a good photo", was his comment). I kept talking to him for a wee while. One thing I did was find out the information that I have been including in my blips as part of the readers world group.

Name:   Jason
Place:    Ponsonby Road
Book :   The Dark Tide, by Andrew Gross (a thriller, he has just started
Refreshment:  Lemon and Paeroa (in the brown bottle)

Lemon and Paeroa was a drink made in a town close to where my father's farm was when I was young. At that time it was a sort of "home made" lemon drink using the local mineral water, hence the name. When a large soft drink manufacturer bought up the local producer, it became a highly sugared and carbonated fizzy drink, and I stopped liking it. It is less sweet again now, I believe, and still very fizzy.

Jason said to me that he had a meeting with someone at 8 am (still almost an hour away), so he was sitting reading until he needed to move. I commented that on my runs and walks it is not uncommon to see people outside, on the streets like this. He responded that he has nowhere else at the moment. Everywhere he goes to ask for a room, is full. This is the first time he has been on the street, and he has been without a home for three months. He doesn't know what he is going to do, and certainly the approaching winter will hit him hard if his current clothing is all he's got. It is lightweight. 

He seemed grateful for the contact, and that his predicament was acknowledged without any concern about why he is on the street. The simple fact is that a wealthy city like Auckland, in which houses are being kept empty by their investor owners so that tenants cannot damage them, has no excuse for not housing every person who needs housing. 

The sun was rising while I talked to him. I wish there was some way to have it rise for him and all the others in a similar situation.