Raymond 'Tiny' Deane – the CEO of one of Rotorua's emergency housing charitable trusts – and several other staff members of Visions of a Helping Hand spent five days at a luxury retreat in Fiji in June. Kristin Hall reports.
Controversy continues to surround a Rotorua emergency housing charitable trust with the revelation of a luxury overseas “development” trip taken by the CEO and several staff members earlier this year.
Raymond ‘Tiny’ Deane and his charity Visions of a Helping Hand hit national headlines last year after a Sunday exposé into conditions for clients at emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Now 1News can reveal Deane and six other Visions staff members, including Deane’s wife Lynley and stepdaughter Kelly Winiata attended a luxury business retreat in Fiji in June this year.
The Nurture Change Business Retreat, a five-day experience at the five-star InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, is touted on its website as “the ultimate tropical getaway”. Past attendees include former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry, boxing star Joseph Parker, and media executive Dame Julie Christie.
In video obtained by 1News, Visions staff can be seen attending presentations, doing exercise classes, sipping drinks and enjoying the beachfront pool.
The retreat, which includes nightly entertainment, can cost as much as $7300 per head to attend, but a staff member at Visions, Rotorua’s largest government-funded emergency housing provider, has questioned the exact purpose of the trip. Fearing reprisal from the organisation, they spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The staff member claims there was very little transparency around the trip.”People were absolutely horrified,” they said. “They said ‘what's going on? Why are they going to Fiji?’.”
They say they’re concerned about the optics of members of an emergency housing charity going on a luxury trip. “That's disgusting. Where did that money come from?”
'Professional and personal development'
1News approached Tiny Deane and Visions of a Helping Hand at the end of September with questions regarding several elements of his management of the charity, including the Fiji trip. Deane did not respond, but in a statement last month, Visions’ board co-chair Anaru Grant said the conference was privately funded, though wouldn’t say who that funder was, and whether or not it was Tiny or Lynley Deane.
He said that all staff were notified on May 29 that some managers would be away for six days from June 7, and that the team most likely to be impacted was given three weeks’ notice. Visions agreed to the staff who attended the trip taking three days’ paid leave in recognition of the conference being for “professional and personal development ”.
He also said Tiny Deane had previously attended the conference alone in 2019, at a cost to Visions of “approximately $6600”.
Grant said the retreat was an opportunity to “forge valuable relationships with other entities” and that the “ongoing value provided by attendance justified the cost”.
Visions of a Helping Hand has been paid more than $32 million by the government since it launched in 2017. In the early days it was a simple night shelter that was famously kickstarted by the Deanes’ re-mortgaging their house.
Revenue skyrocketed between 2018 and 2022, with $111,359 in annual income five years ago, and $15.65 million this year, provided by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Ministry for Social Development (MSD).
Visions of a Helping Hand looks after emergency housing clients in six of the 11 government-contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua, as well as clients in transitional houses. The organisation also operates one ‘Covid-19 response’ motel in Rotorua (where homeless people were first placed during the 2020 lockdown) and one in Taupō.
HUD refused to say exactly how many whānau are under Vision’s care, but the ministry’s temporary housing dashboard shows there are about 512 people, more than half of whom are children, living in Rotorua’s contracted motels, Covid-response motels, and transitional housing.
If you know more about this story contact Kristin Hall at kristin.hall@tvnz.co.nz.
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