January 23, 2019
Māori stream needed for housing policies
A Māori housing advocate says more needs to be done to ensure mainstream programmes like KiwiBuild benefit Māori.
The Government has admitted it is likely to miss the target of 1000 homes in the first year of KiwiBuild because of capacity problems in the building sector after years of under-investment.
Whangārei architectural designer Jade Kake says those houses that are being built are out of the reach of most Māori whānau because their household income is lower than the average.
She says it’s being left to Te Puni Kōkiri to address Māori needs, including small papakainga developments on Māori land and housing repair programmes delivered by iwi health and social service agencies.
"Whilst all those initiatives are really good and really important, there is never going to be enough money there and there is never going to be enough land under Māori title and so I think we also need to see some targeted policies to support Māori through some of these larger mainstream policies like Kiwibuild," Ms Kake says.
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