In this episode, we meet Nicola Fleming, Housing First Programme Manager at Christchurch Methodist Mission.

Nicola came to this work through 20 years at Kāinga Ora — from the West Coast to Aranui in Christchurch, and then through the Canterbury earthquakes, going door to door in the red zone. What she found along the way was a conviction that real change happens at street level, not from a government desk.

In this episode, Nicola talks about what Housing First actually looks like on the ground in Christchurch — who qualifies, how the outreach team finds people nobody has ever counted, and why recovery takes years, not months. She talks about the health gap her team identified and what they did about it, and why she believes Housing First is not a housing programme at all. It is a recovery programme.

We'd like to thank Nicola for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.

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