Tonight there are more than 100 families who will go to sleep with a roof over their heads who otherwise wouldn't have.
It's thanks to Gina and Elmer Peiffer, a couple who the Rotorua Daily Post say are angels for this city and, therefore, deserve, the title of joint winners of Person of the Year.
The Peiffers have been feeding and housing Rotorua's homeless for almost three years, but in the past six months they say the problem has "exploded".
The pair were nominated for the Rotorua Daily Post Person of the Year Award by many Rotorua residents and stood out as the most deserving.
Mr and Mrs Peiffer have been running Love Soup, a non-funded organisation that helps Rotorua's homeless and rough sleepers.
Mrs Peiffer said they had housed more than 100 families in Rotorua this year alone.
"The homeless issue has changed. This time last year we were dealing primarily with single males between the ages of 45 and 70, who are still out there and are rough sleeping. We had a few couples and the odd family. But in June this year it just exploded and it became all families.
"There was a point where we had over 50 families in motels and that doesn't include the single people and the couples that were in the backpackers at the same time.
"And it's because the families are now our main kaupapa with all the kids that people are more aware of homelessness."
She said the major problem here was the housing market as houses went up for sale and a lot of them were being bought by first home buyers not from Rotorua so they weren't being returned to the rental market.
The couple said the city needed new subdivisions and a transitional house, not a homeless shelter.
"A transitional house which is well accomplished, a place they can go and live while they house themselves so they have a roof over their head so they actually have to do the work, that would work," Mr Peiffer said.
Mrs Peiffer said they were still fielding about three to four calls a day from families who were in danger of becoming homeless.
"Because people can get such a good price for their house now you'd be crazy not to sell. But in doing that it's affected the rental properties.
"You have 30 to 50 people going for one rental property and unless you have a real squeaky clean rental history you're not going to get that property."
She said this issue was set to keep going for some time and Love Soup would love to have its own building so the couple could have a proper base to take people through their workshops.
"Elmer takes our people shopping because they don't know how to shop. My cooks and I have shown them how to cook out of my own home. There are lots of people who don't know how to cook and they don't know how to identify basic fruits and vegetables so I want to be able to teach people, men, women, kids, all of them, how to cook. We want to teach them how to be able to budget and understand what a budget is."
She said as well as budgeting and cooking, they dealt with probation and with mental health, because lots of homeless people fell under those categories and needed that support.
This Christmas Eve Love Soup hosted its regulars to a Christmas meal with presents.
"I wrapped almost 500 gifts for the kids and the families that we have housed.
"The gifts are all donated, people have actually gone out and bought, so most of the gifts that we gave this year were brand-new presents."
When asked why she did all of this hard work for no payment, Mrs Peiffer said she "was the kid that always brought home the stragglers".
"I always picked people up everywhere so I guess as an adult I just continued to do that. Why wouldn't you? If you have the opportunity to help people, why wouldn't you?"
Mr Peiffer said he simply did what he did because he enjoyed people.
"It's dealing with all different walks of life. At the end of the day it used to be common practice, if you saw somebody struggling you stopped and helped them."
He said the pair were humbled by the award and he wanted to say a massive thank you to all of their volunteers during the year.
Mrs Peiffer said they wanted to share this award because they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the community of Rotorua.
"Everything we do is because of the Rotorua community and what they do with us.
"We want to say a big thank you to all the local businesses, it's because of that whole community effort that we are able to provide the services that we provide."