Ngāti Mutunga has opened five new houses in Urenui to help whānau get into home ownership and grow their family connections on tribal ground.
Tenants will be uri of Ngāti Mutunga – descendants registered as iwi members.
They’ll pay affordable rentals for five to seven years, so they can consolidate whānau finances to buy their own home on the open market – freeing-up the house for the next family.
Ka Uruora, a housing and finance trust owned by a collective of iwi, will pick tenants and manage the properties in Urenui, 30 kilometres east of New Plymouth.
The iwi agency Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Mutunga, which is based in the coastal village, said Ka Uruora brought housing expertise to the project, which opened last month.
The iwi could instead focus on supporting whānau and strengthening their Ngāti Mutunga connections, rūnanga pouwhakahaere Mitchell Ritai said.
Ka Uruora also provided a grant towards building the houses on two sections Ngāti Mutunga regained in its Treaty settlement in 2005.
Ritai – who this week swaps iwi agencies to manage Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa - said the Ngāti Mutunga’s settlement brought such scant resources the rūnanga could only build the houses in partnership.
“We’ve been able to see something actually happen on our whenua and to provide real, tangible benefits for our whānau.”
Potential tenants must be enrolled in Ka Uruora’s Whānau Saver and have completed its financial literacy course.
Ka Uruora works to boost housing stability and financial wellbeing, with emphasis on home ownership and whānau building long-term iwi relationships.
It’s Taranaki pou arataki Te Waka McLeod is also from Ngāti Mutunga and said for uri home ownership meant not just warm homes but also a return to whenua taken from them.
“For us in Taranaki, muru-raupatu [confiscation of land and its impact] is very much still present,” said McLeod.
“So there’s a deeper connection than just the house, there’s a spiritual connection, there’s a connection back to your tupuna, based on who used to live in this area.”
Rūnanga chair Jamie Tuuta said the houses were part of Ngāti Mutunga’s strategy to bring whānau back to Urenui.
“We’re big believers that we need whānau to be living locally, to be participating, to be contributing to the health and well-being and the vitality of our iwi.”
Tuuta said there were whanau in affordable rentals in Tāmaki [Auckland] through Ka Uruora, and others in the organisation’s Whānau Saver programme.
“It’s part of a whole program – how do we lift the aspirations and inspire our people to plan and to connect with one another?”
Tuuta said they’d run Ngāti Mutunga wānanga in recent years for whānau to learn karakia, kōrero and waiata – and that enabled younger uri to carry new duties at the recent dawn opening of the houses.
“I’m really heartened by the fact that some of our whānau are now contributing to those aspects of who we are as well.”
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
