THE STREET HELP STORY

The Early Days - by Max Brew.

In 1990 there was increasing concern by a number of Christians about the welfare of some of Tauranga’s young people. There was a belief that up to 200 young people were living on the streets of Tauranga.

A group of Christians led by Pastor Russell Turner decided to do something about it.

Pastor Turner (Fergus Hume may have gone with him) traveled to Brisbane to study the workings of Drug-Arm that had been operating in that city for a number of years.

Upon return to N Z a steering committee was set up and volunteers were called for from the churches in Tauranga.

Training for the volunteers (including first aid) started early 1991 and four teams of four were ready to commence street operations the first weekend in June. I was in team 2.

Young people were located living under the sound shell stage at the Mount, parks and bridges, but the numbers were probably in the vicinity of 50.  It was always hard to get an accurate number because if they didn’t want to be found and we could not find them.

After a period of time it was considered that there were not as many as the 200 first thought.

What was an unpleasant reality was the large number of young children aged 9 to 13 years that were on the streets, a lot of them sneaking out without their parents / guardians knowing.

They were coming out to the disco which was designed for the 16 to 19 year age group. The older age group were in fact going to the night clubs.

The other unpleasant reality was the serious drinking of alcohol by some of the younger members of our society including college aged youth.

Something that was really distressing for me was to find a 9 year old in red square at 2.00 in the morning drinking cans of beer.

Some of the things we were to witness in those first 12 months were:

• Next to this end of the railway bridge is a restaurant, (now called Harbourside Waterfront Dining). In those days it was a derelict building having previously been a boat club. We use to check it once a night and frequently found young people there.


• One night at about 3.00 am we found three twelve year old girls, two sisters and a cousin.They were terrified. They had walked across the rail bridge walkway to the disco but were too scared to walk back in the dark. They had been there for 2 hours. We took them home,there was nobody at their home when we got there..


• We picked up a drunk young man trying to get into a window on 15^th Avenue. He thought it was his flat in the Mount. He was bleeding badly from a gash in his arm. We administered First Aid then took him to hospital. We were advised that he would have bleed to death if he had not been found. He could not feel the pain in his drunken state.
• We found a year 9 student probably 13 years old crawling along Turrett Road too drunk to walk. A team member spotted his mate standing beside him. When advised by his mate that no one was home at his place we took him to hospital.


• We picked up a couple of young women hitch hiking over the harbour bridge in pouring rain. They had gone out on a date with a couple of guys who had picked them up from their home at the Mount. At about 1.00am the guys spied a couple of females they liked better so they went off with them. The two original girls had no money for a taxi so had to hitch hike. They were pleased to see us.


• In those early days we would transport a large number of young people home.


• On one Friday night between when we started at 10pm and 3am we took 68 kids home , all third form (year 9) age or younger. Our van could carry 12, and in those days the law only required seat belts in the front. 


• We were by the roundabout at the bottom of Devonport Road and we had 18 to get home. We decided to leave two of our team members behind, but I knew we would still be overloaded and if we left any of the kids behind there was a great possibility that they would not all be there when we came back, even with  two of our team there with them. Once they went you may not locate them again.