March 29, 2023
Housing hui weights up progress
Māori housing advocates are in Rotorua today for their biennial conference to share experiences and identify areas for action.
Wayne Knox, the general manager of the Māori housing network Te Matapihi, says there is a lot of interest in accessing different sources of capital, including from philanthropic trusts and local government, as well as getting banks to be more open to investing in Māori housing.
He says the significant increase in the level of government investment in the past five years has made an impact.
“We’ve also seen some really meaningful efforts to address some of the systemic barriers to advancing Māori-led housing solutions. We’ve still got a long way to go. We need to make sure that this level of investment continues for the future if we are really going to make a dent in the housing crisis that is disproportionately affecting our people,” Mr Knox says.
He says ongoing challenges to building on whenua Māori can be considered a treaty breach.