The housing crisis impacts Māori more than other cultural groups in Aotearoa and academic housing researcher Māpihi says whānau need solutions.
The Māpihi Māori and Pacific Housing Research Centre says 27.5 per cent of Māori own their own home compared to 42.1 per cent for non-Māori (2023 Census). Māori make up a third of public housing tenants and are five times more likely to be homeless than Pākehā, and 21.7 per cent of Māori live in crowded homes.
“There‘s still new horizon for us to work towards,” said Deidre Brown, a professor of architecture at the School of Architecture and Planning at Waipapa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland.
“We’re facing a climate crisis at this point in time, so looking at ways that we can use our own materials and approaches to housing that are more sustainable.”
Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) is a co-director of Māpihi, the housing research centre at the university.
Māpihi has 21 researchers of Māori and Pasifika staff who are full-time academics from across all university faculties, and they have 15 PhD students, mainly Māori and Pasifika. One of the researchers is Professor Anthony Hōete of Ngāti Awa.
“We all have the same vested interests, in seeing our people housed and in appropriate ways,” Brown said.
Brown said it was important for them to be working with the rangatahi PhD students because they were the next generation of thinkers.
Student Savannah Brown (Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) is doing her PhD on papakāinga and the barriers they face. She’s found only one in 10 of serious attempts to develop papakāinga ever get to the drawing board because of legislation, planning and financing issues that inhibit whānau from getting to that point in their housing journey.
Other PhD students are looking at Māori companies building small housing, another looking at hapū-based housing in Tuhoe, and one student looking at māra kai and the connection to housing, and engineering students looking at natural hazards, infrastructure and housing.
Māpihi works with 40 external stakeholders in the community including iwi and hapū, Māori trusts, Pacific church groups, NGOs in housing, community housing providers, developers, professionals from the trades, as well as local and central government agencies like Kāinga Ora and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
Challenges in the housing crisis
Brown said Māori had faced challenges with housing since the beginning of the 20th century but current issues included land supply, building and rental affordability, and proximity to work and education.
When Māpihi was set up, it engaged with stakeholders and found 130 different variables that affected Māori housing.
“Māori and Pacific needs in housing are different from what is currently provided across the motu,” Brown said. “Typically, we need extended family housing, housing for multi-generational families.”
Brown said most of the housing stock in Aotearoa was for nuclear families or smaller, She said Māori thrived when they were together, which isn’t just for three generations but for extended family visits.
“Our houses need to be larger, they need to be more permeable. They need to have really strong connections to taiao even if you’re living away from your tūrangawaewae.”
Māpihi solutions for housing equity
Māpihi’s main priorities at the moment are addressed in three projects.
The first is looking at self-determination in Māori and Pacific building industries. Brown said 20 per cent of small to medium-sized enterprises in construction. Māpihi were looking for clarity on what Māori values were in decision-making and how they were helping Māori clients and communities when it came to disaster relief.
The second priority was the nexus between housing intensification and hauora. Given housing is moving towards terraced living and apartments, the academics are researching how this affects hauora and finding information that can be used by the people developing, designing and occupying the buildings.
The third project aims to make a simplified platform to provide accessible information to Māori and Pacific communities. For instance, the researchers have found councils have been difficult to engage with, and that it is difficult to find financial information which could be helped with a platform.