Doing time in emergency housing worse than jail, says Hamilton man

Friday, 19 August 2022

Evan Thame and his wife are in their ninth Hamilton emergency housing motel and are at breaking point.

Evan Thame is living a nightmare.

The flesh hanging off the face of a man stabbed just metres down the road haunts him.

Thame’s wife was walking to the dairy when the hit-and-run turned stabbing happened.

It was just another night in the heart of central Hamilton’s emergency housing network.

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Evan Thame, 46, says he would rather be back in jail than in emergency housing.

It’s not dark on Ulster St, it’s red and blue.

A constant stream of lights and sirens snake down the road, where emergency housing motels line both sides.

The Government paid $350 a night for the motel room, featuring mould, the smell of sewage, a smoking heat pump, and exposed bed springs.

Meanwhile, Waikato motels earned more than $100 million from the Government during the Covid-19 pandemic as the country grapples with a housing crisis and the soaring cost of living.

Figures show the Anglesea Motel and Conference Centre – the top earner in the region and second place nationally – was paid $11.7m to house 408 people over two years.

Some nights Thame and his wife peek through a gap in the curtains to see children dealing drugs, other nights its guns being waved around by gang members. Stuff has agreed not to name Thame’s wife, who fears for her safety.

It's a 6-year-old who is sent out in the dark with a baggie to drop off to waiting car, making their way back with cash in hand.

And it was gang members who rolled into the driveway, pulling two sawn-off shotguns out of their car.

“I feel like going [back] to jail. It’s worse out here,” Thame says.

Evan Thame and his wife have been living in Gardena Court Motel on Ulster St for four months.

Children knock on their door every other day, starving, asking for food.

“What do you say when you have no food to give? They are hungry.”

The couple give away whatever they have – bread, meat, cans of food. Sometimes it is one of the last few items in their fridge.

The sounds of yelling, screaming, and crying are more common than the sounds of laughing – but they still can’t sleep at night.

Evan Thame and his wife have been in nine emergency housing motels in eighteen months.

“We have to be aware.” It’s just in case, he says.

“We were terrified, scared they would shoot up our house. We don’t feel safe at all.”

Thame knows they will never get a private rental.

His low income – a sickness benefit – is capped due to severe epilepsy, and his wife is his full-time carer.

One of the government's own ministers has condemned some emergency housing as 'inhumane', while taking aim at moteliers - accusing them of turning a quick buck at the expense of safety and a decent place to live.

The actions of a friend who smoked meth while house sitting means no landlord will ever trust the couple.

Eighteen months in emergency housing has felt like a lifetime.

“You stay in your room, you close your curtains, it’s like a little prison,” Thame says.

Endless complaints to Work and Income will get them moved – but the new place is always just as bad.

Gardena Court Motel is their ninth try.

Calls to 111 almost every night had made them a target.

“If you go past we will smash you,” a group of women says to his wife, who is just trying to do washing in the communal laundry.

Back in their room, she’d be in tears.

The couple has been in one of the 15 motel rooms at Gardena Court Motel for four months – and say they are the only residents without gang affiliations.

Thame is the first to admit he’s not an angel, with pages of criminal convictions and a decade of jail time to his name.

His wife, of seven years, has pushed him to be better – putting what are mostly drug convictions behind him.

Evan Thame says they stay in their room and close their curtains.

“The stuff is turning me into the person I used to be.”

The environment is triggering. He can feel himself slipping back into survival mode, where anger can take over in a split second.

“Sometimes I do try to get in and stop it,” he says. But the last thing he wants is to get arrested again.

He is only just hanging on.

“We just want a house. I am ready to go to mental health. I can’t do it, it’s hell mentally.

“It was only supposed to be short term.”

Triggered by stress and a lack of sleep, Thame’s seizures are becoming more and more frequent.

His wife describes them “like a washing machine” where violent muscle spasms take over, and he loses consciousness.

The grand mal seizures can kill him – and he’s had eight in the last week due to increased stress.

“This has real health impacts. It’s hurting me.

“I’ve had it. It’s killing me.”