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A recent partnership between Auckland Catholic housing trust, Monte Cecilia and local recycling service Junk2Go, is helping formerly homeless families set up house.
The partnership is necessary if people are to move into more than an empty shell.
Monte Cecilia explains that when families move into the new house the Trust provides, they often have little to their names. Many lack the household furniture that makes a house into a home.
Junk2Go helps remedy this and, thanks to them, many families can now move into a house with tables to eat on, couches to sit on and beds to sleep in.
Founded in 2004, Junk2Go is an Auckland-based household rubbish and junk collection service. It collects unwanted items from people’s homes and recycles or disposes of them.
A surprising amount of good furniture ends up in the mix, Junk2Go’s Sustainability Manager Jamie Henry says.
“We were looking at the stuff we were getting and some of it was so much higher quality than the stuff people get from MSD,” Henry says.
“Often families are expected to go out and get the cheapest stuff they can find, but the lifespan on items like that isn’t great.
“The stuff we’re getting though, things like $2K couches, beds that are worth $5K, stuff like that often still has a lot of life in it. It could last 5-10 years or more.”
Henry says the Junk2Go partnership with Monte Cecilia started just under a year ago.
By enabling Monte Cecilia to offer household items to tenants, it helps people keep their heads held high, he says. There is often shame associated with having to ask for help, Henry explains.
“We just got a case where we heard from Monte Cecilia that a family moved into a house on a Saturday with literally nothing and in the space of a week we were able to fill their house with a TV, tables, couches, bedroom furniture, the lot. They were really grateful for it.
“Additionally, all these items would normally have gone to landfill so, from an environmental perspective, it’s awesome.”
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