Queenstown community centre Happiness House forced to move, looking for new location

A beloved community centre which has served as a second home to tens of thousands of Queenstowners is on the hunt for a new home of its own.

Happiness House - which offers free food, low-cost clothes, advocacy and spaces for social connection - has learned it must vacate its premises of two decades near Queenstown Gardens by 2028.

At a community meeting on Thursday, Happiness House Trust chair Jen Geale appealed for anyone with leads, ideas or spare land to help ensure the centre remained open, the pantry stocked and the kettle on.

Fifteen thousand people visited annually and demand was growing, she said.

"We're looking at options. But we're standing here today saying the rubber's going to hit the road at some point. We need our community behind us to help us see what's out there, where are we going to be, into the future."

Happiness House's newly appointed manager Francisca Retamales said she understood first-hand how challenging life in the resort town could be, and how much difference the centre's 30 volunteers could make.

She had turned to Happiness House for support when pregnant and newly settling in Queenstown.

"We were struggling… and they helped me so much with baby clothes. And they have apples, they have bread."

Her mother - who spoke no English - had also found connection at the centre, she said.

"The team members could speak Spanish with her so she felt very safe and happy and understood, and the feeling that she belonged to something. She had been here for months already... it was good for her as well to have that."

Retamales said many people came for the op-shop at the front of the building but ended up staying for its other services, like the financial advice or free produce.

A recent client confided that he only had enough money to buy potatoes and tea, and the rest of his weekly food came from Happiness House, she said.

"If you're struggling with money, that shouldn't mean that you don't have a choice and you aren't allowed to eat nutritious food," she said.

Happiness House originated in the living room of its founder, Pat Bird, in 1991.

Verona Cournane, who was a trustee for 25 years, said the town had grown at a breakneck pace yet the needs Bird identified were still the same.

"The vision is exactly the same - vulnerable people, sometimes perfectly ordinary people who were very lonely. Our population in this area grows really fast and sometimes long-term residents get a kind of visitor fatigue - they've got wonderful new neighbours and people they know, and three years later they're not here.

"It can be a very lonely town to try and find where you fit in."

Geale said the Happiness House Trust was ideally seeking land to build on or a new long-term lease of at least five years.

She said finding a new home would not be easy; negotiating zoning constraints, neighbour resistance and the sky-high cost of property in the district came with a devastating irony.

"A large part of why we exist, the people we're supporting - are experiencing the challenges of living here linked to real estate. And here we are experiencing the same thing.

"But there's a circularity to it. We're community supporting community - they walk in, to get support and now we're doing the same, putting it out there and saying we need something."

Geale said she was blown away by people's support and passion for Happiness House.

"It does make me really confident because they really care and that's why I know that we will find something and I know that we will be here for another 35 years."