“[You can get] a 75sq m house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. fully insulated, internal heating for just over $100,000. Imagine supplying a three-bedroom house to your people for $100,000.
During his visit to Nuevo, Stanley says a chance encounter acknowledging the local tribe led to conversations about what the trip to America was for. After explaining that the iwi was looking at a cross-border banking system in London, the tribe leader revealed that the tribe owned a bank.
“We started talking with the chief executive and bank manager, and we asked, ‘Can you give loans in Aotearoa?’ [They said] ‘I think we can’. So from there, it was extraordinary; it came from out of nowhere.”
The next step is sourcing affordable land, and Tauranga is being considered as an option to place the houses as it goes before the board for a decision.
“What would happen if we had blocks of land that we could sell to the people, not at the $200,000 that it’s worth but at $10,000 so that it’s affordable? You take a hit, but you take a hit for your people.
“That’s a hell of a thing to consider. It’s a heck of a loss of money in some respects but you’re claiming it back in health and wellbeing. It’s better for your people.”
The first houses will be going to cyclone-stricken places such as Hawke’s Bay to replace damaged homes.
