Executive summary

Auckland is currently facing a housing crisis (Auckland Council, 2012a) characterised by an undersupply of housing, increasing house prices, and a lack of affordable homes for both purchasers and renters. This report outlines the housing challenges that face many Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland (hereafter referred to as Tāmaki Makaurau) and elsewhere in Aotearoa/New Zealand (hereafter referred to as Aotearoa).

Home ownership is a primary form of inter-generational household wealth accumulation for many who live in Aotearoa, and the increasing exclusion of lower income groups, including Māori, from home ownership, coupled with the effects of population growth and ageing, contributes to growing inequality at both the local and national level. This report draws on existing material in order to assist policy development, and is presented as a stocktake that outlines the issues, experiences and initiatives relating to Māori and housing in Tāmaki Makaurau.

More Māori live in Tāmaki Makaurau than in any other region in Aotearoa. At the 2013 Census, 163,920 people in Tāmaki Makaurau identified as being of Māori descent, over 20,000 more than those who identified as being of Māori ethnicity (142,770). Those of Māori ethnicity living in Tāmaki Makaurau comprised 23.8 per cent of all iwi in Aotearoa (compared to 24.5% of Māori descent), or 10.1 per cent of the population of Tāmaki Makaurau (those of Māori descent comprised 11.6%). There was a slight drop in Māori living in Tāmaki Makaurau in 2013 compared to 2006.

Socio-economic indicators reveal that there have been positive improvements for Māori. Between the 2006 and 2013 censuses there has been an increasing proportion of the Māori population aged 15 years and over that have obtained higher educational qualifications and also an increase in the Māori population earning annual incomes of more than $50,000. Nevertheless, the gap in median weekly income between European/Pākehā and Māori has increased by 103 per cent and despite a closing gap between European/Pākehā and Māori for housing affordability and household crowding measures there remains a large gap between the two groups in terms of housing outcomes more generally.

The primary housing challenges that many Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau face include higher than average rates of household crowding, lower than average home ownership rates and less stability as a result of higher than average rates of renting. Using the median, Māori lived at their place of usual residence for 2.9 years compared to 3.8 years for the European/Pākehā group (2006 Census). In 2013, the majority of Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau had lived at their place of usual residence for less than 5 years (59.1%) and 26.7 per cent for less than a year. This compares to 50.7 per cent and 20.9 per cent respectively, for European/Pākehā living in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Quotes from individuals and whānau from case study reports, show that attempts to meet housing needs are often part of a complex regulatory environment that many low-income individuals and whānau attempt to manoeuvre their way through on a daily basis. Research such as the Family 100 research project (2014), Exploring security of tenure (2015), Experience of rough sleeping (2015), Māori housing experiences (2006), Our Place: Our Home (2001) illustrates how poverty impacts on peoples’ lives through the interrelated issues of social and economic exclusion, educational difficulties, stigma, physical hardship, under-employment, inadequate housing and design, food insecurity, violence and constrained access to health and social services. It is apparent that one sector alone, such as housing, is unable to address the interconnected aspects of poverty.

Wider societal structures, whether historical or contemporary, provide a key way of understanding how overarching legal, economic and organisational structures can disadvantage certain groups. This includes nationwide factors such as low wage growth, and undersupply of affordable housing in Tāmaki Makaurau, and central government legislation and regulations including the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993. Arguably more profound are the effects of colonisation which have resulted in a substantial loss of iwi equity and identity that has had wide-ranging, long-lasting and ongoing effects. In this regard, while the issue of whenua (land) is much greater than the issue of housing, it is tied closely to Māori notions of home. The work of Cherryl Smith (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāi Tūhoe) refers to how land confiscation, the individualisation of land titles, breaches of land guarantees and the appropriation of land through legislative changes has resulted in the massive relocation of Māori off their homelands into towns and cities (Smith, 2015:97). Similarly, the work of Ian Pool (2015) illustrates the range of ways in which alienation of resources occurred, usually via varying legal instruments and without consultation with Māori. This includes the purchase of Māori land by the Crown (1840–1865), land confiscation (Rauputu) mainly during the 1860s and via the Native Land Court (1860s-early 1900s).

Partly offsetting this are the various central government, local government, community and iwi programmes and initiatives that are in existence and which aim to support housing supply, affordability, quality for both Māori and non-Māori, and the cultural resilience of Māori through the likes of papakāinga housing. It is recommended that a closer study of housing initiatives that have been operating for at least three years could be warranted as a further step to this report.

Auckland Council technical report, TR2016/026

August 2016