After a fire at Loafers Lodge left at least five dead, attention has turned to Wellington’s hostels and the housing crisis they embody
On the street outside the hostel, Chris skirts thin ribbons of police emergency tape, stepping sideways as they snap in the wind. Holding a small bunch of white plastic flowers, he carefully hangs the stems from a metal voltage box. “For the bros,” he says. “The ones that didn’t make it out.”
Looming behind him are the charred walls of Loafers Lodge. Some of his neighbours still lie in the building, their bodies unable to be safely retrieved by police and firefighting crews. Five bodies have now been retrieved, but more may have died – up to 10 people remain unaccounted for after the flames ripped through the 92-room boarding house, collapsing parts of the building and sending residents leaping from the upper story windows.
