By Six
Rudyard Kipling once said if you change your perception of the world the world will change its perception of you.
Raymond Paul, (Ngāpuhi and Ngāi Te Rangi), says he was motivated to change his worldview when he had his first child at age 40.
He used to be called Razor and for six years a small space outside a city café was home.
“It was too far for the street whānau to come and rob us and it was well sheltered. We put two seats together and created a windbreaker and used bags and belongings for a pillow,” says Raymond.
This was a space to let life go and scream.
“I’d pull the blankets over my head and yell ‘what the fucks going on here’, and then pull the blankets down and your mates are like are you alright bro? Yeah, I’m all right. My well-being, my way of thinking about the world… I thought the world had given up on me, but I’d given up on myself.”
Stepping away from who Razor was and who Raymond is, was the catalyst for change.
“Don’t call me Razor any more. My name is Raymond,” he says.
“I had a job. I had a partner and worked as a machine operator with bulldozers and diggers.”
Raymond’s lowest point in life was when he lost his mother.
“That took me to a tipping point,” says Raymond. “I lost my best friend. She was my world.”
After losing his mother Raymond says he got heavily into methamphetamine because he wanted to get rid of the hurt.
When his partner left him, after 13 years together, Raymond started dealing drugs and working as an enforcer for gangs.
Raymond discovered his ex-partner was living at her new love interest’s home. She had told him she had left town.
“I wound up in jail. I smashed up their house I smashed up their car. I was an embarrassment. I had never been in trouble before. When I got out I had nowhere to go and came straight to the streets,” says Raymond.
Raymond’s life as Razor is now nothing more than a bad memory. He wanted to give back to his community and whānau so volunteered to work with Lifewise.
Lifewise is a social services agency run by the Methodist Church. They run a community café on Karangahape Road called Merge, where anyone can get help with accommodation, a good meal or many other essential services.
As a peer support worker, Raymond is able to use his life experience to help other rough sleepers navigate a path to recovery.
“I wanna make a change. I wanna take people off the street. To do that is so rewarding inside. There’s no one from the office that can just go down there and talk to the whānau. You have to build that trust. I have that trust. Because I talk on their level.”
Raymond has recently had a big change in his life. Having lost them when things were rough, he now has custody of his son, and is also reunited with his daughter.
