Richard Pehi’s drive to help Whangārei’s homeless leads to world stage

Since taking up the sport of waka ama, Richard Pehi has competed in many international events and is currently in Tahiti representing New Zealand. Photo / Tania Whyte

In September, Richard Pehi was highlighting Whangārei’s homeless plight on a worldwide stage in front of thousands. This month, he’s representing his country again, albeit in the high seas of Tahiti as he and one thousand others battle out a 128km “water marathon”. Jodi Bryant caught up with him before he jetted off.

A Whangārei waka ama champ and homeless advocate has combined his passions to deliver a thought-provoking speech on a worldwide stage about the state of homelessness in Northland.

Richard Pehi was selected among 600 applicants to deliver a 25-minute presentation at the annual Healing Our Spirits Worldwide Conference – one of the most prestigious international conferences for indigenous people in the world.

The event was hosted by the First Nations Health Authority and attended by 3800. His presentation was subsequently selected from thousands to feature in the official worldwide newsletter for the conference, held in Vancouver this year.

The presentation derives from his recently-attained Masters in Indigenous Knowledge, which he received with distinction, where he was required to share information from his learnings with the world. The experienced and well-respected social worker at Open Arms, a Whangārei day centre providing space to rest, eat and seek housing and wellbeing support, saw the opportunity, put forward his submission and was accepted.

Pehi demos how the paddles represents a tool for helping rough sleepers.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Aotearoa in 2020, Pehi was briefly excited to hear the news that the Government was opening motels for rough sleepers.

He spent three weeks telling everybody he found on the streets about the motels in the hopes to finally get housing for Māori largely ignored prior to the pandemic.

Unfortunately, the motel model didn’t work. Pehi says they were run with Western thinking, meaning “follow their rules or obligations or you’ll be evicted”. He believes the political measures designed to “help” whānau typically fail because they are not designed with the Māori worldview in mind.

“When Covid went to level four, there became a whole new area for social services to work in other than our current approach,” he explains. “There was a high rate of evictions and, as I worked with people, I developed a model of practice centered on a relationship.”

He recalled an experience with a client who had just lost her brother to suicide and became homeless as a result. She was able to get into emergency accommodation at a motel but the rules forbade any visitors, including family members. She was forced to grieve her brother’s death completely alone.

The rules also forbade leaving the motel for extended periods, even if the reasons were medical in nature. One man was evicted after spending three days in hospital for an illness. Another family reported to Pehi that their children were not allowed outside and were told not to speak to neighbours.

Pehi said that this model simply does not work with the whānau dynamic of the Māori people. Instead, he set about creating the indigenous model He Whakawhiti Hoe, a principle-based model of practice. Whakawhiti means to cross over, to go from one place to another, to journey.

As a paddling people, the Māori would often have stopovers — He Whare Okioki, meaning A Place to Rest and Reset — where they could rest on their long journeys. Pehi compared rough sleepers to those on their journeys simply needing a place to rest before continuing on.

Pehi has competed in many international events and is currently in Tahiti representing New Zealand. Photo / Tania Whyte

A 10-time national champion and two-time world champion, waka ama paddler, Pehi compared his paddle to the tool helping people. The handle is the connection between the support worker (Pehi) and the whānau (people) who are sleeping rough.

The body of the paddle is the relationship between the support worker and the person being supported, learning about the expectations of one another. Finally, the blade is about the sovereignty of the person in taking control of their future. The blade propels you forward and into permanent housing.

But Pehi cautioned that the last step is one that the whānau must make themselves.

“Nobody’s going to do it for you. You’ve got to put your paddle in the water.”

He says his presentation was well-received in Vancouver with many relating.

“A lot of them are water people so, when I used the paddle as a metaphor, they connected really well.”

While there, he also took a trip to the notorious “Downtown Eastside”, where homelessness is rife, and spent a day talking to service providers, returning home with some new approaches he believes could be useful here because “there’s one thing that’s guaranteed 100 per cent, is that homelessness is not going to go away”.

“Homelessness is very fluid in Whangārei. People come and go but the three main areas are your actual rough sleepers who are scattered around in tents, car dwellers in carparks, and couch surfers. At Open Arms, we also see those in poverty where all their income is going to rent and utilities such as power and phones.”

While working in mental health for 20 years, the 56-year-old saw a theme; when somebody had a traumatic event and would try to express it to either the community, services or family and it fell on deaf ears, the separation became more prominent.

“The majority of the people I meet on the streets, there’s a historical trauma and part of their healing is to find ways to get back to normality. I haven’t met anybody on the streets who doesn’t want a nice warm home. This is a new journey for them – they weren’t born into homelessness - and they can get there on their journey faster if they have the right tools.”

Senior master men's crew Team Pineula heading to compete in the 2023 Hawakiiniu va'a waka ama race.

His outreach role at Open Arms involves bridging the gap and approaching rough sleepers to talk with them, instead of waiting for them to approach for help.

After working with both the rough sleepers and accommodation providers, Pehi’s model proved successful.

“I used the metaphor of the paddle to visualise a different approach and that’s to work a lot better together. The number of evictions went down and the relationship was more humanistic whereas before, there was no relationship with the rule book as the rule book couldn’t talk back.”

However, he is hoping for widespread adoption and is calling for a total system reset where the Government adopts the Māori kaupapa (policy) approach of He Whare Okioki, where whānau wellbeing is the focus.

Since taking up the sport of waka ama, Pehi has competed in many international events and is currently in Tahiti representing New Zealand in an elite invitations-only event called Hawaiki Nui Va’a. The three-day “water marathon” takes place on the high seas and in the lagoon over 128km long divided into three legs involving 1000 international paddlers in 100 six-man waka ama canoes.

Pehi’s team comprises 12 members from both Australia and New Zealand, swapping paddlers on different days, and who have been attending training camps every month for the last six months.

“What’s really significant about the Hawaiki Nui is that one of the islands is called Ra’iatea and that is where my ancestors came from on the first voyages when Kupe landed in the Hokianga.”

Fifteen years ago, Pehi lead a different lifestyle and the former rugby player confesses he was a regular drinker, smoker and quite overweight. Until he discovered waka ama.

And like his ancestors, Pehi used his paddle as a tool to propel himself forward on his journey and is now hoping the same technique can be applied for those in hardship.