De Paul House – Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, New Zealand
De Paul House – Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Auckland, New Zealand
The De Paul House provides housing accommodations and support services for families that become homeless. The mission is to keep them together and teach them valuable skills that will help them get back into the job market. Aside from housing, food, clothing and furniture, De Paul House offers many life skill classes to help these families. They learn how to budget and prepare for their future. For families with school aged children they offer support to continue their schooling. They benefit from after school homework help, printing and computer resources. For those families with pre-school aged children the Early Childhood Centre provides a spacious play area. The qualified staff prepare the younger children to enter school later.
History
In the early 1980’s, the members of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, Northcote became deeply concerned about the number of families on the North Shore who were either living in overcrowded circumstances or were homeless. In 1986, the Daughters of Charity started the House, named after Saint Vincent de Paul and the work of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. The team of volunteers from De Paul House started supporting homeless people with 6 housing units at first. The team has consistently grown every year. Now they have a group of 87 registered volunteers who help to house between 80 and 100 individuals. 60-70% are children.
Mission
The mission of the De Paul House is to help provide housing for homeless families as they look for employment opportunities and affordable housing. The House helps an average of 80 to 100 people every year. They transition from being homeless to finding work and long-term housing.
Charity is committed to enabling families to create real and long-term solutions to avoid becoming homeless again. De Paul House strives for long term change for families and reports a very high success rate: the majority of the families entering the programme do not find themselves homeless again and the children remain enrolled in school/childcare.
The Project supported by the Caritas Pro Vitae Gradu Charitable Trust
Thanks to our support the De Paul House was able to renovate emergency family housing units owned and utilised by the De Paul House in Auckland, New Zealand. In addition, Caritas Pro Vitae Gradu Charitable Trust has provided financial assistance to temporarily lease accommodation to ensure a minimum loss of capacity to families in need during the renovation works.