March 01, 2023
Hunt on for temporary house sites
A Māori housing advocate says work has started finding or building temporary accommodation for people in the East Coast displaced by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Willie Te Aho from Toitū Tairāwhiti says a contract to build 75 new homes by the end of the financial year has been disrupted because of a damage to infrastructure going into the Ngati Porou area, where 46 houses were due to be completed.
Now he’s got the job of completing 100 whare awhina or temporary houses from Wairoa to Hick’s Bay by the end of May.
The hunt is on for stable, sheltered land that will take the dwellings for at least two years.
“Within that two years we have to work through whether it is about renovating the current house or making changes, lifting the level of the house, or mvoing to a separate site that is not susceptible to the weather, and those are the longer discussions that will be taking place with the whanau,” Mr Te Aho says.
Many of the displaced whanau are currently at the school at Te Karaka, and they need to be moved to motels or to stay with relatives while the whare awhina are built.