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Poets Corner Community Renewal

The Hamilton suburb of Enderley has undergone a transformation thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Hamilton City Council, New Zealand National Community Policing Group, and the local community. Olly Te Ua (Hamilton City Council) and Glyn Rowland (NZ Police) explain the hard work behind this success story.

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Renewing Enderley through collaboration

In September 2007, 14 key social development agencies became signatories of Hamilton’s Social Wellbeing Strategy. They have come together to acknowledge projects and programmes, work collaboratively and establish a new way of solving their common problems and issues. Renewing the community of Enderley, known as Poets Corner, was identified as a flagship project.

Led by Housing New Zealand and Hamilton City Council, the project involves a number of strategic partners including

• NZ Police
• Ministry of Youth Development
• Work and Income
• Ministry of Education
• Child Youth and Family
• Te Puni Kokiri
• Te Rūnanga o Kirikiriroa
• Waikato District Health Board.

They are collaborating to develop an action plan to improve the overall social well-being of the Enderley area.

The goal is to create a healthy community where children are well fed and succeed in school; where alcohol and drug issues are reduced; where there is zero tolerance to all forms of violence, starting with family violence; where all residents are in employment, education, training or engaged in their communities; and where first home ownership is encouraged and supported.

Enderley - a history of difficulties

Located north of Hamilton, the suburb of Enderley has a history of trouble. Described by one long-time resident as a “magnet for those on low incomes and gang activity,” it has been known locally as a crime hotspot and gang stronghold.

Jim Wetere has long been an active member of the Enderley community. He is currently the manager of the Enderley Community Centre, but he started by managing the local rugby club. When he began, the Centre was yet to be and the park buildings in a major piece of Housing New Zealand estate served as the rugby clubrooms.

Wetere says it was quite a vibrant area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ”The club sourced a huge percentage of our playing strength from the area and at one stage the club there was the biggest junior boys rugby section in New Zealand. The surrounding neighbourhood mirrored that passion.”

“An economic downturn changed things dramatically. Trades people and labourers suffered more than most. Many of the area’s Mā and Pacfic population became unemployed beneficiaries.”

Increased gang activity

From his experience, Wetere believes that where you have low income areas you are also more than likely to have gangs. “They feed off poverty, they feed off desperation. In Enderley we’re now talking two, three generations of some families who’ve had affiliations with gangs.”

The attraction of joining a gang was one of the most prolific problem facing the area’s youth. Disengaged youth became targets for gang members, who could offer a sense of belonging that the community could not. Many youth felt they had no alternative but to take on a life of crime.

As a result, the area has seen a rise in youth crime, antisocial behaviour, tagging and a feeling of fear and intimidation on local streets. In 2007, Enderley had some of the highest recorded crime in the Hamilton area.

The pressures of increased crime and graffiti began to give Enderley a tired and neglected look. When troubles eventually drove the local rugby club out of the suburb, Hamilton City Council took over the park buildings and the Enderley Community Centre was born.

Gang problems fluctuate in Enderley and recruitment drives in late 2006 saw the problem hit a peak. When a series of shootings hit the national headlines, the problem got so bad that NZ Post decided to cease residential service for a time. Community safety, capacity and pride dropped to a low. When escalating violence hit the media, the Enderley Park Community Centre was operating out of a Hamilton City Council facility.

Transforming the community

A lot has changed since 2006 and the Centre is now the first port of call for local community looking for a safe haven, advice, life skills, government assistance, medical care and youth programmes. The transformation of this community has become a blueprint for other community development project across Hamilton.

Enderley’s success has a chemistry that’s hard to recreate. Behind the scenes is a tireless team, made up of the Enderley Park Community Centre Committee, dedicated Hamilton City Council staff, a passionate local Housing New Zealand representative, a popular Community Constable, the staff of resident medical centre and many long-time loyal residents.

Each weekday morning, committee members rise in the early hours, collect children from their homes and bring them to the Community Centre’s Breakfast Club. Following a nutritious morning meal, the kids are escorted to school by walking bus with a lunch in their backpacks. An after school programme provides kids with dinner, a safe haven to be themselves and a range of activities designed to give them the building blocks to have and achieve their own aspirations. A holiday programme also operates in vacation periods.

The majority of funding for the programme has been secured through the Ministry of Social Development’s Out of School Care and Recreation (OSCAR) initiative and is supported by the Council through staff, funds and the use of the Enderley facility. Assistance from local businesses and the Buddist Tzu Chi Foundation has been invaluable. One of Wetere’s most descriptive anecdotes is members of the Foundation teaching after-school programme kids Mandarin in the evenings.

Wetere says the equation is fairly simply. Back in late 2006 gangs were and still are recruiting children “as young as seven, eight or nine. Once they get into that late teenage stage it’s a fair comment to make that a lot of the ones who’d get involved in youth gangs don’t go on to organised gangs, but by then they could already have been in serious trouble”.

Everyone involved with the Centre works hard to ensure that the kids go to school will full stomachs and recharged concentration, getting them off the streets in the post-school hours, occupying them, feeding them, building their esteem and tiring them out with captivating and positive activities. Providing these positive alternatives to roaming the streets, looking for trouble, makes perfect sense.

The vital role of the Community Constable

These days the Community Centre is always looking to improve its service to the wider community – literacy programmes, playgroups, night classes. It already boasts a medical centre, drop-in times for Government agencies and Community Constable Mason Le Pou.

Wetere admits that prior to Constable Le Pou’s arrival, the community was hostile towards the police. “Many people felt that they were just there to round up people and arrest them. I can remember some people warning me that having the police here at the Centre would probably chase people away. I pointed out that if people didn’t come to the Centre because there was a policeman there, they probably wouldn’t and shouldn’t.”

Asking the police to join the Centre came from a renaissance in community policing that was driven by the idea of police working with the community, local authorities and government agencies to develop lasting solutions to community concerns.

Constable Le Pou had come across an intriguing problem-solving formula called SARA at a Māori community policing workshop and thought it would be a good match for Enderley. SARA stands for Scanning, Analysing, Responding and Assessing. It is a tool for addressing problems and finding solutions.

In the initial months of his role, Le Pou would walk the streets of the suburb, watching and learning. He quickly realised he wouldn’t achieve anything in isolation and sought the assistance of local churches, Hamilton City Council, government agencies and began attended local community network meetings. From one of these meetings, Le Pou developed support to form an inter-agency group to discuss local issues.

Working with the community to achieve their priorities

To enable as many as residents as possible to attend, Le Pou held meetings on three consecutive days at different times to introduce himself and the police’s take on Enderley’s problems. Most importantly he was sure to asked residents what their concerns were. At the top of the list was gang activity, followed by intimidation, drugs, tagging, government agencies, alcohol, family values, lack of police visibility, litter and problems when calling 111.

Le Pou says it is telling that no-one mentioned any of the problems that he had highlighted in his presentation. “It shows just how wrong you can get it if you don’t listen to the community.”

Looking to develop a strategy to tackle the area’s gang problem, Le Pou talked to parents, kids and members about the gangs and their recruitment methods. Fear was a central theme. Gang members and “wanabees” could break the law without fear of recrimination because people were too scared to report them.

Brainstorming ideas with the interagency group, Le Pou took several possible solutions to a group of residents to check if they were on the right track. The result was to focus on two essential issues – bringing a sports club back to Enderley and developing weeknight activities at the Centre.

The Community Centre’s Breakfast Club and OSCAR holiday programme were already making great progress on child care issues and need for youth activity development. The need for after-school care was exacerbated by the low socio-economic status of the area, many people could not afford after-school care while they were still at work.

Making progress by working together

In support of the Community Centre’s increasing development of care programmes, the police launched an operation to target the removal of gang leadership in the area. Parallel to that Housing New Zealand reaffirmed its commitment to zero tolerance of anti-social behaviour within its properties. They also lent their whole-hearted support to an event which signified a watershed moment for many.

In March the Enderley Working Bee saw residents team up with over 500 members of the Mormon Helping Hands programme to clean up vandalism and tagging on their streets. The majority of paint and materials were supplied by Hamilton City Council with the support from the local Bunnings and from Excel.

Residents on the day said it was the start of feeling that someone really cared about their neighbourhood, and it would not have been possible without Housing New Zealand and support from the city’s team of Community Constables.

That same day the Hillcrest Hornets held their first home game back at Enderley. Many said it was the best celebration the park had ever seen and others felt spurred on to keep up the momentum.

The Poets’ Corner Community Renewal project has a five to seven year time span. Redevelopment of the community’s social and physical infrastructure will make a crucial contribution to resolving the community’s complex social issues. Effective urban redesign will play a role as well and this is articulated in Hamilton City Council’s urban design strategy – City Scope and VISTA.

Milestones

• Project partners are delivering on the community outcomes Hamiltonians identified as their priority:



• A safe, friendly city where all people feel connected and valued.
• Low crime rates, where people feel safe and secure at all times.
• Opportunities for all people to access and participate in sports and leisure activities that meet their diverse needs.
• A city that is an ideal place for family and whanau with lots of activities and places for tamariki and rangitahi to enjoy.
• Organisations working together to achieve all community outcomes.
• The facilities provided at the Community Centre have been very popular with local youth and the community. The Community Centre has become a focus for Enderley, providing an area for youth to be active and engaged with their community.
• The local community has increased feelings of safety on the streets and pride in their environment.
• Crime has reduced. Offence comparisons show that between January 2007 and June 2008, burglary has reduced by 50%, drugs offences dropped by a third and, during a period where violence trends have risen nationally, recorded violence in the Enderley area has continued to decrease.
• Gang membership has been reduced.
• Social development agencies have a successful partnership model to work on.
• The community was involved in the process of identifying and acting on the problems in their area.
• The improved relationship between the police and the community has seen a level of co-operation in addressing criminal behaviour that was previously thought unimaginable.

Many thanks to Olly Te Ua, Hamilton City Council and Glyn Rowland, New Zealand Police for supplying this story.