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Maori home ownership has plummeted over the past 25 years.
Statistics New Zealand says home ownership peaked nationally in 1991, with about half of Maori and Pacific people living in an owner-occupied dwelling.
The figure nationally was about three in four people in their own homes.
Since then the Maori home ownership rate has fallen 20 percent, and the total rate 15 percent.
The declines were even larger in some bigger North Island cities – close to 40 percent for Maori ownership in the Whangarei, Southern Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, and Hastings urban areas.
Labour’s Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri says National’s refusal to address the housing crisis is increasing the decline, and it will affect Maori for generations to come.
She says more and more of whanau are in desperate situations; living in cars and garages or sharing homes with a number of other families.
She’s calling on the Government to start on a massive state-backed affordable house building programme and crack down on speculators that are driving up house prices.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
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