Her experience epitomises the important role of such agencies in the landscape of social services in New Zealand generally. Mary's abridged biography provides poignant insight into the integral role played in her life by the voluntary welfare provider-a drop-in centre-that she patronised in Dunedin, a small New Zealand city. Since that time the administrator has also set aside two hours every week to helping Mary improve her reading and writing skills (Fieldwork notes pseudonym applied). The agency's administrator recently advocated on behalf of Mary to Work and Income because she was not receiving the level of income support to which she was legally entitled. During her visits to the drop-in centre, Mary enjoys reading the paper, as well as sitting down with her friends, “having a cuppa, and just talking and laughing”. A friend first referred her to the agency over a decade ago, and during that time, Mary has developed a close bond with the administrator and her fellow patrons, so much so that she sees them as her “extended family”. Mary does not have any children, and lives alone in Dunedin's inner city, a five-minute walk from the drop-in centre. Mary is a 60-year-old woman who was deinstitutionalised from a mental health facility in the early 1990s and who is a regular patron in a drop-in centre in Dunedin, spending at least three hours there every day.
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