Proposal to open up marae for homeless in Northland

A Ngāti Hine leader has deemed "problematic" a proposal for marae across Northland to open their doors as temporary accommodation for the homeless with support from the Government.

Pita Tipene said rural marae in particular would have issues at times such as during tangi and other functions when those being housed would have to be temporarily moved elsewhere.

He was reacting to a proposal by Matthew Tukaki, chairman of the New Zealand Māori Authority, who said it was time to ask marae across the nation to open their doors as
temporary accommodation and for the Government to funnel the millions it spent housing the homeless in motels towards the marae.

Ministry of Social Development figures show $751,044 in Emergency Housing Special Needs' Grant was paid out in the December quarter of 2020 in Northland, including to those being billeted in motels.

Of that amount, $607,763 was in Whangārei, $136,398 in the Far North and $6883 in Kaipara.

Ministry records show 886 people were waiting to get into public housing in Northland at the end of last year.

Tukaki said the reality was a lot of Kiwis were unable to keep pace with the cost of living and needed affordable places to live.

"The wage growth is stubbornly low and so it's a case of always robbing Peter to pay Paul. People were housed in marae when the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes happened but it's always up to individual marae whether they want to take people in.

"Let them stay short-term in marae with wrap-around services while some sort of transitional houses are sorted for them. Dozens of families in Northland are living in cars and they are not unemployed," he said.

But Tipene, who is also chairman of Motatau Marae, 21km southwest of Kawakawa, said Tukaki was asking "a little bit" too much.

"If the proposal is we open the doors and allow people to stay in the marae itself, then that would be problematic because the first priority for all our marae is when our loved ones pass away, the marae is tied up for three to four days.

"Sometimes the marae can be tied up for weeks on end and the whole focus of the community goes towards looking after the bereaved family. As far as I am concerned, all marae across the country are same on that basis."

Motatau Marae is not in a position to accommodate homeless people, even on short-term stays. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Tipene said Ngāti Hine already has two kaumātua flats on the estate, as well as another house that was used as an emergency housing, while plans are afoot to build up to 10 houses near Motatau Marae.

"Here at Motatau, we're even struggling to pay insurance and other maintenance costs of this marae, unless we were supported on a sustainable basis there'd be no one that we could support the dire housing needs of our community."

He knows of cases around Moerewa and Kawakawa where people with children were living in cars and sleeping under park benches

"At Ngāti Hine, we are really making an effort to put our shoulder to the wheel to help alleviate the problem and support our people.

"We have land and in most cases, it's multiply-owned and that causes its own problems but there are a lot of people in this area who own their own land so they can build on it.

"We're also trying to get the Government to release land that was gifted by Ngāti Hine to the Government, back in the last century for public works, and it seems a lot of that land has been grazed in areas like Kawakawa and Moerewa."

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said she could not comment as she had yet to see Tukaki's proposal.

However, she said the proposal sounded similar to the programme run by Te Puea Memorial Marae in Auckland, which has been very successful in supporting people in need.

That marae took over 480 homeless whānau during the Covid-19 lockdown last year and has plans to expand the papakāinga to cater for more people.

One Double Five Community House chief executive Liz Cassidy-Nelson said she would support Tukaki's proposal but was mindful of the fact it was up to each marae to say yes or no based on their capacity.

The Government yesterday announced it was pouring in close to $4 billion into a scheme to accelerate the pace of new house builds, which is expected to help see "tens of thousands" of new homes constructed.

An artist's impression of what Kāinga Ora houses will look like once they're completed on Pearce Dr in Kamo.

First home buyers have also been given a lifeline – the First Home Grant caps have been lifted from $85,000 to $95,000 for single buyers, and from $130,000 to $150,000 for two or more buyers.

The cap on the value of the house those eligible for this grant are able to buy has also been lifted by up to $100,000 in some parts of the country, excluding Northland where the ceiling remains at $500,000.

There were 2192 public houses in Northland at the end of September 2020 that were either owned or leased by Kāinga Ora and registered community housing providers.

Kāinga Ora plans to lodge a resource consent application for 20 social houses on Pearce Dr in Kamo.

There will be 10 three-bedroom houses, four four-bedroom, four five-bedroom, and two two-bedroom ones spread over 11,000sq m of land.

Kāinga Ora will be given a $2b loan to scale up land acquisition.