May 19, 2021
Māori housing advocates put up $300m Budget wish list
Māori housing advocates hope today’s Budget will deliver upwards of $300 million a year for the kaupapa.
Wayne Knox from Te Matapihi says current spending includes Te Puni Kokiri’s Māori Housing Network, which falls well short of the number of papakainga projects in the pipeline, and the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development’s MAIHI Māori and iwi housing innovation framework, which gets $$10 million a year.
A recent national hui asked ministers for a $250 million a year kaupapa Māori housing fund, less then 10 percent of what’s currently spent on emergency housing and the accommodation supplement.
"For MAIHI, instead of $40 million over four years it should be $40 million a year, and for TPK, there was a proposal for an additional $20 million a year just for infrastructure funding, because that's one of the main costs our whānau face when building on whenua Māori," Mr Knox says.
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