Sleeping in a Car With His Daughter

A father and his teenage daughter were homeless. They were sleeping in his car. She had gone to a local gym to shower when one of our staff members contacted him, after a referral had come through, late that night.

Kemal had been renting a shared property with his daughter. Two weeks earlier, his landlord had asked him to vacate without notice, intending to demolish the building. Kemal had no savings. He worked in construction, but income had slowed dramatically, dropping from regular work to roughly one day per week.

There was no time to plan. He and his daughter were suddenly without shelter, in a city where emergency accommodation fills up quickly and rental applications require income history and references he no longer had.

A staff member at NZF contacted the team urgently. Within hours, an emergency hotel payment was fast-tracked to provide immediate shelter for the family. A food voucher followed shortly after.

The situation with Kemal was complex. A review of his financial history indicated ongoing financial pressures and patterns of spending that raised concern. Caseworkers noted this clearly and raised it with management. The decision was deliberate: the need of a teenage girl without shelter was immediate. Whatever the underlying issues, she should not sleep in a car.

Kemal was able to secure a rental within that week, with the help of the community. A rental agreement was approved, and NZF funded the bond of over $2,000, paid directly to the real estate agent. A Ramadan support payment was also arranged.

Kemal was housed. His daughter had a bedroom. The car was no longer their home.

Your Zakat. Their Right.

Kemal is not perfect; however, these were circumstances he did not expect to be in. His case was not without complexity. But his daughter was a teenager sleeping in a car while still attending school. She is Hidden in Plain Sight, the child of someone struggling, invisible unless you know to look.

Because of local Zakat, a single father and his teenage daughter did not spend another night without shelter.