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Maori housing advocates are gathering in Whanganui today to share stories and come to grips with new policies.
Rau Hoskins from Te Matapihi, the national Maori housing organisation, says conference attendees want to have a say on the new Maori housing strategy being developed by Te Puni Kokiri and the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.
They will also share their experiences with the social housing reform process, which is creating opportunities for Maori providers.
"There’s a lot of work for us to do to build our Maori housing capacity but there’s a lot of keenness from groups small ad large around the motu to get into housing because everyone is aware of how central the quality of housing is to the lives of all of our people," Mr Hoskins says.
Among the success stories are a housing project in nearby Ratana, the work done by land trusts in the Bay of Plenty, and the experiments in the far north of building houses from rammed earth and harakeke.
Copyright © 2014, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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