Communities say there isn’t enough housing support to meet the need and are hoping for greener pastures, ahead of the Budget 2026 announcement.
This year’s Budget will be revealed on Thursday, 28 May, but anticipation is growing in light of major cuts to Māori Housing Development funding last year and recently, a pre-budget announcement from the Minister of Housing, Chris Bishop, on plans to raise income-related rent contribution for social housing tenants from 25 per cent to 30 per cent.
Te Ao Māori News took to the streets and found the issues of most concern were homelessness, social and transitional housing.
“Well, myself I’m in a transitional home at the moment, and I’m waiting for some housing for myself so that I can migrate my five children further this way for sports, education, and further my education,” said a Whāngarei woman.
Others commented on seeing a rise in homelessness in the past two years, or commented on the lack of social support to help people get into state or transitional housing.
Chief Executive, Ali Hamlin Paenga from Te Matapihi, says Māori Housing Providers on the ground are seeing homelessness and hardship increase, saying thousands of properties are needed.
She admits she doesn’t think much more support will come from this year’s Budget and that Māori Housing development is already facing pressures since last year’s disestablishment of the Whai Kāinga Whai Ora fund.
“The limited numbers of housing that is coming out of the Flexi Fund is only around 700 to 750, and that’s across the whole country. We are in a crisis, and we need thousands of more houses,” she says.
“As a Māori housing sector...we need to look at other investment opportunities. Sometimes we have to look at what the koha is in this ‘hōha’ that’s currently happening across our system”.
The fund, which originally allocated $730 million over four years, was replaced by the Flexible Fund, a large reduction to $291 million over 4-10 years, putting Māori Housing providers up against other mainstream contenders opposed to funding previously being ringfenced.
Applications for the fund have now closed, and providers are yet to be awarded, but Hamlin-Paenga believes the criteria for ‘modest housing’ could kick Māori out.
“Their fund doesn’t work for a lot of our Papakāinga development, but the papakāinga development are what makes the biggest impact on housing for Māori because there’s the ability to build on your own land, but the problem that also goes alongside this is the lack of infrastructure on Māori land.”
Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga fund provided grants to help with infrastructure, which is typically absent from Māori land; the Flexible Fund focuses on ongoing operational subsidies instead.
She claims other roadblocks are criteria around the scalability of properties, meaning smaller organisations or projects could be excluded.
Associate Minister for Housing, Tama Potaka, says the government has committed over 450 million dollars to Māori housing providers to build Affordable Housing, but couldn’t give several details on how much has been spent on Māori development in the last year, saying there is a variety of different funding streams.
“Without a bit more granularity, it’s hard to answer that question... That’s a lot of homes [to come from the 40 million], that’s a lot of putea, and we continue to commit and support Māori housing aspirations,” he says.
Paenga-Hamlin argues that Affordable Housing is still too expensive for those in critical need and says an alternative would be to focus on housing people in general, rather than supplying multiple models.
Communities say they’ll be watching to see whether this year’s will deliver meaningful support or add to current housing pressures.
