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The chief executive of Maori housing advocacy group Te Matapihi wants to see a $40 million Budget allocation used to scale up Maori providers.
The putea has been tagged for a variety of purposes, including the refurbishment of existing housing stock, support for community-based housing projects, and expansion of the Sorted Kāinga Ora programme, which helps whānau learn how to save for housing.
Wayne Knox says the experience of people working to address Māori homelessness, such as Hurimoana Dennis from Mangere’s Te Puea Marae, is that a mix of bricks and mortar and wraparound care is needed.
While there has been a lot of planning, many iwi and Māori organisations have lacked the resources to deliver projects.
“That’s where this putea needs to go to. Firstly grow the scale of the Māori housing providers and secondly to grow the amount of housing. It’s not much in terms of bricks and mortar but what it can do is build out providers to access the other putea that is out there, the so-called mainstream putea,” Mr Knox says.
He says there are a lot of resources across the housing sector, but there is also little coordination or connection with Māori, despite that being where much of the need is for warm, dry, affordable housing.
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