A Wairoa iwi housing provider says changes to government funding are making it harder to deliver affordable homes for whānau Māori in rural communities.
The concerns follow the release of the Aotearoa New Zealand Human Rights Foundation’s report, The Right to a Decent Home in Aotearoa New Zealand: Review 2023–2026.
The report found little progress had been made towards realising the right to adequate housing since 2023 and criticised the shift from dedicated Māori-led housing programmes to broader contestable funding.
Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa (TToTW) has led housing initiatives in the region since Cyclone Gabrielle devastated the district in 2023. Its work has also sought to address longstanding housing problems affecting whānau living in inadequate conditions.
TToTW chief executive Lewis Ratapu says the government’s reallocation of targeted Māori-led housing funding to contestable funds has left the region worse off.
He says conflicting messages from government representatives have also created uncertainty over the future of housing projects in Te Wairoa.
“We’ve been advised by government that they don’t see any need for new houses here in Te Wairoa. That often changes depending on who you talk to, talking to a minister or a senior official.
“Often, they look at the housing waitlist and that determines whether you need houses or not. But we’ve been able to provide other data that we get from our whānau that shows the housing need.”
Housing development in the region
Ratapu says targeted Māori-led funding under the previous government supported the development of 54 homes in the region.
That included the Te Rauā development, which delivered 43 homes ranging from one-bedroom kaumātua flats to four-bedroom family homes.
It was the largest housing development undertaken in the district and gave more whānau access to improved housing.
However, Ratapu says many whānau continue to live in poor conditions, while securing funding for further developments has become more difficult.
He says the challenges are evident in TToTW’s latest 12-home development.
“We’re just about to launch into another new build, 12 homes, here in Te Wairoa under the current government policy and that’s been a struggle, and the struggle has been generally because of the way the access to the grants.
Lower rental returns in the district also make developments harder to finance because loans take longer to repay. That can make proposals less attractive to lenders and increase the amount providers must borrow.
“So, with a smaller grant component under the current government policy setting of this government it makes it a lot more tighter and it means we probably can’t give as much discount as we would like for our whānau that struggle.”
Report raises Te Tiriti concerns
The Human Rights Foundation’s report highlighted the May 2025 conclusion of Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga, a four-year programme supporting housing solutions “by Māori, for Māori”.
Future housing investment is instead being moved towards the government’s broader Flexible Fund, under which Māori organisations compete with other eligible providers for funding.
Ratapu says the transition has made it more difficult for iwi providers such as TToTW to plan and finance new developments while whānau continue to experience damp homes, delayed repairs and other inadequate living conditions.
He says removing references to Te Tiriti from housing decision-making processes risks setting regions such as Te Wairoa further back.
“As soon as you remove any reference to the Treaty and those can’t be a part of the decision making process’ around how funding is deployed into communities like Te Wairoa of course that kind of sets us back.”
