Pete wears a scarlet hoodie on top of another jacket, zipped up to the chin. Moko lines trace his nose, curling into twin koru in the hollow under each sharp cheekbone. One of those cheekbones was crushed a few years back. His eye socket broke in five places, from an night that ended ugly. Above the other is a scar from a stabbing: someone rammed a shank into his left temple. The ink lines cross and intersect with the scars: his left eyebrow split in half from when he tripped, high on synthetics, and smacked it on the table corner.

It's for the election, I say. We've heard from the political commentators, the politicians, the experts, now I want to hear what someone else thinks. Yeah, this is a good place to find things out, he nods vigorously.

He looks up. "What are you here for again?"

His name is Moko Pete*. He is rake-thin and talks at frenetic pace. He grabs my hand and presses it to his side. "Feel that! Ribs. Too skinny."

"I just heard the bang!" he says. "When my head hit the table, I thought, fuck, someone's shot me! Some guy's taken a hit out on me." He touches the scar. "Doctor did a good job though. Always be nice to doctors. Stitched it right back together."

Will Pete be voting this year? He turns and points to his back pocket—there's a register-to-vote pack stuffed in there.

'Here' is Merge Cafe on Karangahape Road, started up by Lifewise about six years ago. They used to run a soup kitchen downtown, but didn't really like the dynamic: food just doled out, no choices for the clients. So Merge was born: the food is cheap and good, people pay for it and can pick what they like. The local business suits mix with crews of homeless kids. If you have some extra cash, you can pay it forward and buy lunch for the person behind you. There are computers in the corner so people can get online. If you have no fixed address you can get your mail delivered here. Recently, the staff have been doing advocacy training to help those struggling with WINZ.

He remembers Helen Clark was good—she didn't touch the dole. "As long as they don't stop my benefit I'll vote for them, straight up. Benefit's not easy to get. If it wasn't for that I'd have nothing."

"Yeah Bill English. Might vote for him. Not too sure though. He might be a bit too firm. Bit hardout. More police don't solve all the crimes. Can make more, sometimes."

Pete's an undecided. He remembers Bill English from his failed first run at Prime Minister in 2002. "Back then he was all, more police, more police, more police. That's good, that's good. More police, less crime. You oughta see me and my mates when we see the boys in blue!" He laughs.

"Haven't been arrested for three years. Know how I did it? Got off the alcohol. Said to myself, when do you get arrested? Always when I was drunk. Got drunk, got locked up. My mother was scared of me. My father was scared of me. That's bad.

The big problem's drugs, he says. Twenty people dead this year smoking synnies. The smoke smells like horse tranquiliser, which he remembers from a stint living on a farm. Last time he smoked a bag, he walked all the way across town before he came to and realised where he was.

He doesn't want to lose this house, and if people come around he doesn't want to turn them away. Living on the streets was brutal. Sleeping in front of a shop, drunk men would sometimes come and put the boot in. A friend of his was stomped while he was sleeping outside Burger King.

"Now I got another house—twice I've passed. Every two months they come round and swab the walls. Nothing."

It wasn't him smoking it, he says, but he lost the house anyway.

Pete was on the streets for a long while, but he's off now, and plans to stay that way. "Got my own place and everything. Had two places. Lost the first house—they came round and swabbed the walls. P."

He's spent three life lags inside, and he counts them off. First one was seven years, then 10; last one was 24 but he got out after 22.

Mak isn't keen on being photographed. "No thank you," he says. "Only had my photo taken once in my life. That was a mugshot."

"Here! Talk to this guy!" he says. "He knows his stuff."

"Guess how old I am? 51. Look alright, could've looked better. Hasn't been an easy life, hard life, hard times."

But to be honest, he says, the longer he stays out of jail, the smaller he gets. Even if it's just a couple of months inside he comes out with a few more kilograms of muscle.

But the politicians don't solve anything. "Never voted in my life" he says. "Waste of time. In the long run, no matter who you pick or whatever they put across, it's never gonna be that."

For the last few years he's steered clear of that, focused on giving back to to the community, giving good advice to the younger kids who're getting into trouble. Sometimes he'll go to a mate's house and put food in their cupboards. But helping people is not always easy. Mak's been homeless for five and a half years, sleeping in a tent under an overpass. If you string up your canvas right, he says, you can create a windproof layer and some soundproofing as well. "We're Kiwis! We're inventors. Know how to solve problems."

It might change though, if there were some younger people coming through. "I want to see the younger generation run the 21st century. Let them in there and you never know! First year they'll party. Second year they'll brainstorm. Third year they'll come up with brilliant ideas."

***

Cafe manager Manu has worked here for a year and nine months. He used to work in IT, but left all that and says he loves working at Merge.

This morning he's talking down a man who seems to be yelling about his phone company: "Yeah, I see your point," he says, "but no swearing in here please."

Mak and Pete look up briefly from the table.

"Manu's alright," Mak says.

"Yeah," Pete nods. "Yeah, he's got a good heart."

***

Wiki settles onto a bench. Her beanie is tugged low across her eyes. She pops a photobook on the table, one of those ones with pictures of wide-eyed babies posing with puppies, kittens, the occasional chicken or budgie. "It's beautiful," she says. Her voice is soft. "Got some cool animals in there. I'm leaving it here. People can look at it. I like it myself, but"— she gestures at the bundle beside her—"trying to lighten the load."

She won't be voting. "Don't touch that stuff. Lot of people don't bother."

She takes out a carefully folded sudoku, pressing her finger down the crease, and starts to fill in the boxes.