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Innovative Design To Address Youth Homelessness Wins Prestigious Award
Visionwest Community Trust and Strachan Group Architects (SGA) have joined forces in a youth housing project that has seen the creation of quality sleepout accommodation to provide warmth and shelter for vulnerable young people who are transitioning out of care or homelessness.
On Wednesday night, the My Whare sleepout design was successful at the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) Auckland Awards, winning a Small Project Architecture award.
My Whare is more than four walls and a roof. It is a programme designed to connect a young person to a stable family environment through placing a My Whare sleepout in the host family’s backyard and integrating the young person into a supportive community with the help of a specialised youth worker.
Brook Turner, Visionwest Head of Services Development and Partnerships says," This vote of confidence from the architect community adds more momentum to a project with the innovative flare to change the approach to solving homelessness."
James Widgery, General Manager of Community Housing at Visionwest says " The collaboration with Pat de Pont and SGA shows what can happen when community works together to address one of Aotearoa's most challenging problems.”
With 1% of New Zealanders homeless or housing deprived and some reports suggesting up to half of these are under 25, the hope is that the My Whare initiative can be shared with other community groups enabling more Kiwis to join the mission to solve youth homelessness for good.
Visionwest
Visionwest provides wraparound support services to the most vulnerable in our communities to achieve our vision of transformed lives and healthy communities.
Visionwest is one of New Zealand leading care providers, offering housing, food support, budgeting, home healthcare, youth training and employment, counselling, and early learning and care to West Auckland communities; home healthcare throughout Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Rotorua Lakes; and housing in Canterbury/Christchurch.
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