Chantelle Ericksen is living in a garage with her children.

The garage in east Christchurch is a hive of activity.

Children are being fed, cleaned up and told to play outside while mummy talks to her visitors.

On his way out, Brody Marshall says proudly to his mum: "I'm four!"

John Kirk-Anderson Chantelle Ericksen lives in a garage with her three children including Luke,1, and partner. Since the earthquakes she has slept on couches, in caravan and now a garage.

For a brief moment, mum Chantelle Ericksen loses the stress written all over her face. She pauses, smiles down at her son and hugs him.

"You sure are," she says.

Ericksen is trying to dry her children's clothes in the damp musty garage air. Sixteen toddler t-shirts hang at equal distances from a garage door arm.

Brody, Kyle, 6, Luke,1, and Ericksen and her partner have lived in the garage for a year. Patchwork carpet pieces cover the cold concrete floor, duvet inners line the garage door. There are two beds, a crib, toys, clothes, food all crammed into the garage.

Ericksen is exhausted. She wants to curl into a ball but it is not an option. Little faces must be wiped clean and dropped off to school and kindy.

READ MORE:

* 'I've had enough' - Canterbury caravan mum

* Housing recovery neglects the poor

* Christchurch quake mums sleeping in chairs, dining rooms

* 'I think about suicide everyday' - Christchurch shed couple

* Here for the Christchurch rebuild, living in a van

Since the earthquakes, Ericksen's family has not had secure accommodation. First she was on a couch with her children on mattresses, in a caravan and now a garage.

She had a rental house but the lease was not renewed because of property damage. The cost of rent is too much for the family.

Luke has never known what it is to have a home – it destroys Chantelle to think about it.

Ericksen is concerned their nomadic living situation is hurting her children.

"Living here, I know it is affecting the kids because their behaviour has gone downhill, which gets me more stressed out.

"[We] will be getting in the car to come here and he'll [Brody] ask where are we going? I'll say home and he'll say to our new home? Every time he says that it breaks my heart."

Ericksen has been on the state housing waiting list for five months. She is high priority. She is trying to address her own mounting depression, helped by St John of God Waipuna social workers.

But she yearns to be the person she once was.

"Usually I am a happy energetic person go out heaps and do stuff. But being here, I just feel like I don't want to do anything, I just want to lay in bed and do nothing. I don't ant to go anywhere. I have no energy."

Her three boys keep her going.

"Them running around, it's like it give me all their energy too."

* * *

It is a month later.

Ericksen has just moved into a state house.

She got in the car after taking the keys and started screaming with excitement.

The children have their own bedrooms. Ericksen is excited to have a kitchen where she can resume her love of baking.

She is relieved but says she is one of the lucky ones.

"I know people who haven't been this fortunate. I really feel for them."

READ MORE:

* 15 Filipino rebuild workers living one house

* Squatting in abandoned quake buildings

* Pensioner living in his car