No money, no job — and now no home for Maria, 17

Press, 23 June 1981, Page 1

No money, no job — and now no home for Maria, 17

A 17-year-old unemployed girl with “no money and no place to go" was. evicted from a Christchurch city flat last evening by the police. Maria Mackay had earlier watched from inside the flat as carpenters nailed up the windows. She stayed inside, refusing to leave, when a man, acting for the flat’s owner, padlocked the front door, locking her in. “As far as I am concerned this is my home, and it is where I want to stay,” she said from behind the nailedshut windows. Avon Motor Lodge, Ltd, the owher of the house at 29 Hurley Street, served an

eviction notice on its tenants on June 5. It is understood that the company intended to demolish the house. Maria said that her two flatmates moved out yesterday morning. She had stayed behind because she had “no money and no place to go.” She regarded the old house as her home. She was unemployed, but was not receiving the unemployment benefit, although she had applied for it. “It is difficult to. find a place these days when you are unemployed and not receiving any benefit,” she said. Both her parents were dead.

When the man acting for Avon Motor Lodge, Ltd, returned with the .police, Maria was persuaded to leave the house.

The police offered to take her to a women’s hostel, but some of her friends arrived and offered her a bed on a couch in a flat which they said was “already overcrowded.”

A group of neighbours, who had assembled to watch after the police arrived at 5.20 p.m. had differing opinions about both the house and its residents.

“It is a beautiful old place, and one of them was really looking after it,” said a woman.

"It is a horrible old dump.” said an elderly man. “I do not know how they' lived there. '

“No sooner would one lot move in than another lot would move out.”

The police warned Maria that if she returned to the property without the owner's permission, she would be arrested for trespassing.

The business manager of Avon Motor Lodge, Ltd, Mr T. Doocey, had no comment to make about the eviction last evening.- : ;

He had agreed to let Maria return to the house this morning to pick up her bed and her Siamese cat," Harley.