08-03-2024, 02:34 PM
Maori built housing for Maori.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/4681...eir-whenua
"The dream lives above Ōkahu Bay, on the shores of the Waitematā Harbour. Up the winding hill and through the wooden gates a community lives collectively, Ōrākei Marae at its centre. From the street you can hear nannies chasing after their mokopuna, as well-fed dogs bark at each other. There's uninterrupted multi-million-dollar views of Auckland city, Sky Tower and all, but most importantly, there's 10 purpose-built whare for kaumatua.
This is the dream realised for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei (after the nightmare of seeing their people evicted from the land and their houses burnt down in 1952), but for most iwi it's a mirage. Even if they managed to hold onto some of their land, through confiscations and war, or succeed in having their ancestral whenua returned, the odds are stacked against them being able to build a single house upon it, let alone a papakāinga like this one.
Look at those two-bedroom houses, all black bricks and red roofs with solar panels, less than a 200-metre walk from the marae and designed specifically for kaumatua needs.
If it works so well, why aren't papakāinga (intergenerational communal housing on Māori ancestral land) springing up across the country? They remain few and far between, even as statistics show the housing crisis badly impacting Māori. Scroll through the Facebook group 'Papakāinga - resources for getting whare on the whenua for whānau' and you quickly realise there are a lot of Māori who want their own houses on their own land, but, they say, the systems are stacked against them.
Take the banks - it's far more difficult to get a loan to build on whenua Māori, than to get an individual mortgage.
What stops banks from lending? Māori land can't be easily sold as it is owned by multiple people and protected from being taken from Māori ownership under the Te Ture Whenua Act 1993. That means the land can't be used as security for a mortgage, as it is with other mortgages. Some banks told RNZ they lend for buildings on whenua Māori on a case-by-case basis, but all acknowledged it was challenging and complex for them to do so.
Wayne Knox (Waikato Tainui), the general manager of Māori housing advocacy group Te Matapihi, says there are a number of "bugs" in the design of the Kāinga Whenua loan. As well as having to build on removable piles, he believes the application process is too stringent.
"It's one of those 'death by a thousand cuts' kind of things where there's all these little things, they just add up, which make it a lot harder than a standard mortgage product to be able to access."
In the 12 years since the loan scheme was launched, only 70 loans have been issued, 53 of those in the past five years.
He says the low uptake does not reflect a lack of interest but that the requirements are too challenging for many Māori.
They are even more difficult for Māori with low-household incomes, he says.
"Even accessing a standard mortgage product is hard for many of our whānau."
While there are some government grants available for papakāinga, it's often not enough to help whānau living on very little, like many in Northland, he says.
"That's one of the reasons why we haven't seen a lot of papakāinga development in the North for example, because whānau don't have the income to service a mortgage, " Knox says."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/4681...eir-whenua
"The dream lives above Ōkahu Bay, on the shores of the Waitematā Harbour. Up the winding hill and through the wooden gates a community lives collectively, Ōrākei Marae at its centre. From the street you can hear nannies chasing after their mokopuna, as well-fed dogs bark at each other. There's uninterrupted multi-million-dollar views of Auckland city, Sky Tower and all, but most importantly, there's 10 purpose-built whare for kaumatua.
This is the dream realised for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei (after the nightmare of seeing their people evicted from the land and their houses burnt down in 1952), but for most iwi it's a mirage. Even if they managed to hold onto some of their land, through confiscations and war, or succeed in having their ancestral whenua returned, the odds are stacked against them being able to build a single house upon it, let alone a papakāinga like this one.
Look at those two-bedroom houses, all black bricks and red roofs with solar panels, less than a 200-metre walk from the marae and designed specifically for kaumatua needs.
If it works so well, why aren't papakāinga (intergenerational communal housing on Māori ancestral land) springing up across the country? They remain few and far between, even as statistics show the housing crisis badly impacting Māori. Scroll through the Facebook group 'Papakāinga - resources for getting whare on the whenua for whānau' and you quickly realise there are a lot of Māori who want their own houses on their own land, but, they say, the systems are stacked against them.
Take the banks - it's far more difficult to get a loan to build on whenua Māori, than to get an individual mortgage.
What stops banks from lending? Māori land can't be easily sold as it is owned by multiple people and protected from being taken from Māori ownership under the Te Ture Whenua Act 1993. That means the land can't be used as security for a mortgage, as it is with other mortgages. Some banks told RNZ they lend for buildings on whenua Māori on a case-by-case basis, but all acknowledged it was challenging and complex for them to do so.
Wayne Knox (Waikato Tainui), the general manager of Māori housing advocacy group Te Matapihi, says there are a number of "bugs" in the design of the Kāinga Whenua loan. As well as having to build on removable piles, he believes the application process is too stringent.
"It's one of those 'death by a thousand cuts' kind of things where there's all these little things, they just add up, which make it a lot harder than a standard mortgage product to be able to access."
In the 12 years since the loan scheme was launched, only 70 loans have been issued, 53 of those in the past five years.
He says the low uptake does not reflect a lack of interest but that the requirements are too challenging for many Māori.
They are even more difficult for Māori with low-household incomes, he says.
"Even accessing a standard mortgage product is hard for many of our whānau."
While there are some government grants available for papakāinga, it's often not enough to help whānau living on very little, like many in Northland, he says.
"That's one of the reasons why we haven't seen a lot of papakāinga development in the North for example, because whānau don't have the income to service a mortgage, " Knox says."
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)