A year after they opened, more than a thousand people have been given a roof over their heads and hot meals through the homeless shelters a Rotorua man funded by mortgaging his own house.
Fifty-year-old Tiny Deane poured money into what has now become three large night shelters for the city's homeless.
Tiny Deane: "I'm called Tiny because I'm the smallest one in my family." Photo: RNZ / Jordan Bond
He now has government funding and is feeding and housing up to a hundred people a night.
Dezire Rika and her children Photo: RNZ / Jordan Bond
And as Jordan Bond reports, it's meant a chance at a better life for many people.
Justin Carr, formerly homeless, now a support worker with Housing First and Lifewise. Photo: RNZ / Jordan Bond
