Linwood Open House—come in, come back

Press, 29 August 1980, Page 13

Linwood Open House—come in, come back

By

STAN DARLING

A cup of tea. A place to rest. A place to read. A toilet. Some Linwood residents — mostly women so far, but they would not mind a few men — are providing those things for anyone who wants them in their Open House. All volunteers, they are learning to deal on a small scale with things like grief (other people’s) and kitchen petrol spills.

But they do not want to be seen by passersby as just a crisis drop-in centre for the lonely. They are looking for ways to entice neighbours in, lonely or not, troubled or not. You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant, the Arlo Guthrie song says. The Linwood Open House wants to be the same way, and to become a sort of community centre. It has been going less than a year now, but there are already signs that it may be gaining a foothold. In a way, the old house at 265 Linwood Avenue may be the cosiest future car park in town. It is rented month-to-month from G.U.S., which plans to start building its big Linwood City indoor mall next year.

The Open House is in the way, since it sits on part of the car . park, and it- will have to come down.

G.U.S. says it will be virtually L the last building

to go on the mall site, and another G.U.S.-owned house could be available for rental then . across Cranley Street, next to the mall.

So if the Open House still serves a purpose then, and the people running it hope so, it will have somewhere to go.

In the meantime, it can carry on trying to build the financial foundation that helps keep such places going. Founded by the eight Linwood churches, the house got a small start-up grant from the Christchurch City Council and has been trying to get support from local businesses and anyone else who will help. So far, one of the biggest attractions is the house’s toilet — through the kitchen, out the back door, through the washhouse and in a well-venti-lated comer with a backyard view. Use of the toilet is a natural attraction, since the shopping centre does not have public toilets. That will change with the new mall, but until then there is no need to be caught short while the Open House is there. There is a public toilet across Linwood Park, but it is too far to go for parents with young children. , , , . “By that time, they ve went,” one volunteer said.

“We had to have a go,” Mrs Grace Brooks told a council planner recently when he came to the house to explain what is happening in the neighbourhood, “because this is what we talk about the whole time we’re here.”

She suggested the headline for a story might be “Lack of loos in Linwood.”

. They . don’t talk about toilets the whole time. There is a cake stall to get ready for fund-raising, and the question of whe-

ther to sell used clothing to be thought over. There is the need to borrow a mower that will not seize up in the wet grass.

Someone brought over a power mower that was sitting in the kitchen the other day. Its petrol tin leaked on to the kitchen floor, and that had to be mopped up. Firefighters were called in to make sure it had been done correctly. Most of these things are logged, and the volunteers are into their second log book. The other day, a Frenchman stopped by for a chat and a hot drink. He had the kind of problem

they had not come up against before. He had come out to the country only six weeks before, and had just learned that his wife and child had been killed in France. He needed a place to come and talk.

“We thought the men fixing the road out there were going to come in,” said Mrs Alys Galbraith. “They stood reading the sign.” The. log book shows in detail what use is being made of the house.

A craft group is there occasionally, led by a council community worker, Marian Free, and the house would like to see more uses like that. Mrs Free is in regular touch with the volunteers, and heads the Open House management group. In the back of the house is a toy room, so that preschoolers can be minded while their parents shop. Others just come to rest and chat, or wait for a doctor’s appointment. One day, a woman donated a brown teapot. A man brought magazines, and asked how much the place was used. A young woman came in to say she would like

house-cleaning jobs; her notice went up on the sun-porch board. A motorist had a cup of tea and used the toilet while a puncture was fixed. A social worker used the telephone, and a reverend came in to offer counselling if anyone needed it. No-one did that day, but ministers are there regularly if needed.

The volunteers have been talking about how they might help the Household Budget Advisory Service as a surburban outlet for advice if the central service runs short of money. This year, a tax advise.r from Inland Revenue was available at the house for a day. Someone will talk to the wife of the local member of Parliament, Geoff Palmer, about what could be done for people needing budget help. Open House volunteers will be glad to know that G.U.S. can provide them with another house. They did not know how successful they would be with a possible location in -the mall. A shopfront is not a home. They want visitors to keep coming back, maybe even to become volunteers. The place could be used more if visitors . were asked ,to help out, bake cakes, bring handcrafts, anything: the . Open House is waiting.