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After five moves in the last two years, Cynthia, her 82-year-old mum Terongo, and Terongo’s 10-year-old great-granddaughter Devannah-Paige finally have a home in which they can settle.

It has been horrid, says the resilient Cynthia, fighting back tears. “I have had the responsibility of constantly trying to find somewhere for us stay and I have hated it; it has just been so hard.

“When Vicky (Kāinga Ora placement advisor) told me she had a home for us to look at, I didn’t want to get too excited. That news was just too good to be true.”

“Now we have moved in, I am so relieved. The thought of having a long-term home that we won’t get moved on from, is huge. It has been a long road getting here.”

Cynthia’s whanau whakapapa to Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast.

“Mum moved back to Tokomaru Bay after living in Auckland for 46 years. We were in an older state home and had to move out when it was getting upgraded. We decided to move back to our roots. We moved into one of the kaumatua flats in Tokomaru Bay and lived there for 2 years.

Terongo is the matriarch of a large family – she has 96 direct descendants.

Unfortunately, we moved on from the flats after family celebrated mum’s 80th birthday. With nowhere else to go, in 2022 we moved onto family land that was also in Tokomaru Bay. The land had been surveyed to have a house placed on the site for us all to live in. That was where we were when the wettest summer in living memory landed in Tairāwhiti.”

The rains started in November and just didn’t stop, recalls Cynthia. “Then Cyclone Hale hit us hard followed by Cyclone Gabrielle.”

“We were living in a kaūta (lean-to) at the time. The home-made kitchen and living area were made from corrugated iron. It had no power, no running water and no floor; definitely off the grid! I hired a cabin where Devannah-Paige, our extended family and I were sleeping. Mum slept on a couch in the kaūta.

“After the cyclones, we were completely cut off. The Mangahauini River bridge that takes you into Gisborne was gone. Supplies were delivered via a chilli bin hooked on a pulley that was hauled over the river. Our land is in a gully down river. With the huge number of trees and debris washed down, our land was devastated and is still at risk.”

“That’s when the Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) stepped in. The TAS service is activated to house people after Civil Defence emergencies. They moved us into a motel in Gisborne. Then we were lucky enough to get a temporary house before we were moved into a cabin at a local motor camp. That’s where we were when we got the call from Vicky.”

Terongo is also relieved. “This house is so big compared to what we have been living in. I am looking forward to having my family visit without any problems. This is very important to me.”

“I have trouble getting around now. It is great to use my hospital bed again. I have been sleeping on a lazyboy chair for some time. The house has been built with wider doorways, a larger shower so I can fit my shower chair in and a separate toilet – which is a real treat,” adds Terongo.

As her home is starting to come together, Cynthia reflects that she can stop wondering if they will be homeless again. “Thank goodness we got a house just before I broke. I really couldn’t have taken much more.”

Page updated: 14 August 2024

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Te Mātāwai in central Auckland operates under a single site supported housing model that combines a permanent home with 24/7 onsite support services to residents. It is the first of its kind to be developed and delivered by Kāinga Ora in Aotearoa and recently marked one year open in the community.

“I lived in the old original 1950’s 87-unit building. As the site was being redeveloped we were all supported to move to other Kāinga Ora homes. In 2018, I moved to another place across town but always knew I would be back as I really wanted to live in the new development Kāinga Ora was planning to build on the site.”

“I was also keen to move back because I was involved in one of the tenant advisory groups. We had opportunities to provide ideas to Kāinga Ora about the sorts of facilities the new development needed to have. Some of the suggestions we made were an onsite communal kitchen and dining area where residents could eat together. We also provided input about outdoor areas. It’s just fantastic to see that Te Mātāwai has these facilities for tenants to enjoy.”

“My home at Te Mātāwai is on level 2. It’s brand new and so nice and warm. From my unit I also have a view over the outdoor areas which means a lot to me.”

“As Te Mātāwai is in a great location I get to enjoy everything the city has to offer. I often walk to the public library and a movie and visit friends that live locally in other Kāinga Ora homes. As I have an interest in architecture I love nothing more than walking around the CBD and seeing all the changes that are taking place.”

“The Hapori Kaitiaki – community guardians that welcome me and other tenants as soon as we walk through the front door are a super friendly team. Seeing a friendly face that knows you by name and can help if needed is heartwarming.”

“Looking ahead I want to do another computer course like the course I completed recently in the computer room here at Te Mātāwai as it’s helping me to learn new skills. I’ve really enjoyed my first year living here and always knew what was going to replace the old building was going to be awesome. Te Mātāwai has turned out to be everything I knew it would be and so much more,” Jane says.

Page updated: 5 August 2024

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Zita Smith has lived in the same Kāinga Ora home in Rutherford Road for the last 32 years. Her home is one of a group of six flats. Many of her immediate neighbours have also lived there a long time, so looking after each other is a way of life.

When I saw the new homes in the street were finished and new families were moving in, I wanted to awhi (support) them with love, says Zita.

“I wanted to make sure our new neighbours felt welcome and knew where to turn if they needed anything.”

As a tangible symbol of that welcoming and to symbolise a new start, the very handy Zita made a taonga (treasure); a kohatu or decorated stone embedded with aroha (love) to enhance the wairua (spirit) of each new home. A kohatu was placed on the bench of each home before whānau moved in.

“My aroha went out to the whānau, many who have come from living in motels and other places unsuitable places to raise their children. These whānau are on the start of a new journey and they will blossom now. It is a great feeling to have one of these beautiful warm places to call home and to start building new memories.”

Her awhi was shared straight after the new homes were blessed by local kaumatua and those attending shared whanaungatanga (getting to know each other).

I told them all that if they need a cup of sugar or anything else they know where to find me, says Zita.

“If they are short of food, they can get a hot meal at Trinity Church three days a week where my sister and I help with food preparation.”

Food preparation for Trinity Church meals is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to helping in her community.

We were brought up a farm outside of Wairoa, recalls Zita.

“We were isolated; nowhere near town, so we had to grow our own vegetables. We shared what we grew with others in our community. That was how we were brought up. It has stuck with me, my sisters and my children. We are all involved in giving back to our communities in some way.”

Zita worked in security at the Warehouse in Napier for 27 years where she became a popular staff member.

“The Warehouse were very supportive of the charity work I was involved in.”

As a long-standing Māori Warden, Zita also works at the district court ‘looking after our people’. When she is not on Māori Warden duties she can be found cooking for her elderly neighbours, working with her sisters to making 2500 ‘Yuri Bears” for the children in Ukraine or crocheting blankets for babies in hospitals throughout the North Island.

The baby blankets are not just a casual hobby. In the 18 months since Cyclone Gabrielle Zita has crocheted 3500 baby blankets.

“Each one takes me about half a day or more to make. I don’t watch a lot of TV, so I crochet. One of my sisters has now come onboard to help me with this.”

It doesn’t look like Zita, or her sister will be putting their feet up anytime soon.

Page updated: 2 August 2024

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The recently completed development is near the corner of Gladstone Road and Mill Road and opposite Te Hapara School. The homes have been built on the back of a 5118m site, that held three state homes and vacant land.

The development comprises one six-bedroom home, three four-bedroom homes, four three-bedroom homes and one two-bedroom home.

Naomi Whitewood, (Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi) Regional Director East North Island, says we are privileged to be able to provide warm, comfortable long-term homes for nine whānau who have had nowhere suitable to live for some time.
“By increasing the number of homes on this site, more whānau will enjoy living in an area that is across the road from Te Hapara School and close to other services.

“We take a careful approach to matching the homes to whānau with the highest priority for a home of that size and who will be a good fit with the neighbouring community. The larger size of the homes and the school close by, were important considerations when matching families to the homes. That is one reason so many tamariki are now living in this development.”

“Our new customers were keen to move into their new home as soon as possible. Once completed, the homes were blessed, and all the families started moving in straight away.”

Charmaine and her six children are one of the whanau that couldn’t wait to move into their new home.

“It’s been a really difficult journey to get a place where we can all live and not worry about getting moved on. It’s been nearly four years of uncertainty; first in a motel 20 minutes from town and then in transitional housing.

“When we lived in the motel out of town, I was making eight trips a day until 10pm at night! I had to pick up and drop off the kids and fit in my shifts at work around all the other things that needed doing.

“It was easier to work shifts when I was in transitional housing. We lived closer to the kids schools and I had the best social workers supporting us from Te Runanga o Ngāti Porou.

“Moving into this home I now feel at peace; like there is a big weight off my shoulders. Ideally we would have had a home four years ago, when the kids were younger. My four eldest are all teenagers now.

“We will make the most of this opportunity. I am looking forward to going back to fulltime work once we are all settled. After years of sleeping in the lounge, I now get a bedroom. It has a view. The thought of settling down and never having to move again is bliss.”

Esther is another mum who has moved into one of the new homes. She also has six children. Three of them attend Te Hapara school, with the youngest starting there next year.

“They have been running around school telling all their mates they are moving into one of the flash new houses over the road.”

“We are all so excited about living here. The kids and I have been dancing around the house waiting for the moment we can move in.”

See where we are building or planning to build in Gisborne(external link).

Page updated: 26 July 2024

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Patrick Dougherty, General Manager Construction & Innovation says “Over the last 12 months Kāinga Ora teams have worked hard to deliver new social housing throughout New Zealand. We’ve completed 4,864 new Kāinga Ora state homes – that’s an average of thirteen new homes being delivered every day, or 93 homes a week.”

“We build our homes to last at least 50 years and meet the needs of Kiwis now, as well as future generations. We achieve this by often exceeding current building codes and regulations to keep maintenance costs manageable in future years.

“We work with hundreds of architects, engineers, developers and construction companies all over Aotearoa to achieve this.”

The new homes vary in size and style, ranging from one-bedroom apartments to multi-bedroom freestanding homes. Three quarters of the new homes are standalone or semi-detached, with the remaining quarter apartment-style living in buildings three levels or higher.

“We build homes to cater for a wide range of needs. Just over two thirds of the new houses are one- or two-bedroom homes for individuals or small families, while over 1,700 homes have three or more bedrooms suitable for larger whānau,” says Mr Dougherty.

Kāinga Ora delivers new homes by removing old homes and redeveloping the land we own and buying completed homes from private developers. It also purchases or leases existing homes in areas where there is a need. Through removing, redeveloping and buying completed homes the national net increase in Kāinga Ora social and supported homes to the 12 months ending June 2024 is 3,605.

Page updated: 24 July 2024

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Regional Director – Northland, Jeff Murray says the Kensington homes were built on land already owned by Kāinga Ora.

“Across these existing sites on King Street and Churchill Street, in Kensington, we were able to replace four, aging homes that were past their best, with 22 new, modern homes for whanau in need.

“With construction complete, our dedicated placements team have been carefully matching suitable whānau from the Ministry of Social Development’s Housing Register to the new homes,” says Mr Murray.

MSD’s Housing Register currently has 642 applicants for the Whangārei area.

“The majority of the new homes are now tenanted with whānau grateful to have a safe, stable, healthy place to call home,” says Mr Murray.

Jason Williamson, Construction Manager, Northland, at Precision Construction says their Northland-based team worked hard to deliver the new homes at pace.

“We are really proud of these homes that are the result of significant efforts by Precision Construction’s Whangārei-based team, local tradies and subcontractors on the ground.

“A truly collaborative partnership with Kāinga Ora and the Whangārei District Council allowed us to use innovative construction methods, resulting in faster onsite construction and high-quality homes that are structurally stronger, better insulated, weathertight and sustainable,” says Mr Williamson.

Prior to whānau moving in, around 300 community members took the opportunity to walk through the homes, at a series of community open days hosted by Kāinga Ora earlier this month.

Page updated: 19 July 2024

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After attending local primary and secondary schools, Braedyn landed an apprenticeship just an eight-minute walk from home and enjoys his sense of independence.

“I love being able to walk to work. I don’t need to drive or depend on public transport,” he says.

Braedyn joined local company Woods Glass as an apprentice machinist straight from high school. He’d been studying carpentry for five years and was keen to get into a technology trade. Through his school’s work experience programme, he started spending one day a week at Woods Glass and was delighted to secure a full-time position towards the end of Year 12.

“I was quite shocked because I didn’t really expect it, it was more than I had dreamed of. It seemed to happen very quickly and suddenly I could be independent.

“It was a great feeling to make my family proud. As soon as I told my mum, the waterworks started,” he laughs.

Braedyn admits he also found the transition from school to the workplace nerve-wracking.

“Going into a workplace for the first time was a bit scary because there are people you don’t know and here there is a lot of machinery. I was pretty nervous for my first few months.

“Now I’ve been here two years, I’d tell any high schooler not to be put off by nerves. It gets easier every day; you just have to give it a go and take the opportunity to learn. I’m not nervous anymore, in fact, my workmates are like one big family. I have my home family and my work family.

“We work in teams with everyone helping each other out. My supervisor Sammy is a great guy, he’s become my mentor. At break times, we chat about anything and everything. He’s actually my favourite part of the job”.

Sammy says he’s impressed with Braedyn’s progress since joining the company two years ago. “He is always willing to help out and he can quickly sense what needs to be done. I can see Braedyn becoming a supervisor then going further in his career.”

Sammy says he and Braedyn enjoy a special friendship. “We talk about our families and what we’ve been up to. We help each other with problems.”

Company manager Steven agrees. “Braedyn’s work ethic won him a company values award. Every four months, we hold a “Town Hall”, a celebration to acknowledge great work and Braedyn received an award for commitment. When his supervisor was away on holiday, Braedyn stepped up to manage the CNC (Automated aluminium milling) machine which was far beyond what we could have expected of him at that stage. We were so impressed.”

Supporting his whānau is important to Braedyn. He spends a lot of his time either at home with his mother and sisters or visiting his grandparents.

“It wasn’t easy for my mum to bring up us kids on her own so it’s nice to be able to help out now that I’m working.”

“I’ve had a lot of support from Kāinga Ora and my school and my employers, so it feels good to be able to give back.” 

Page updated: 18 July 2024

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Our frontline teams are making earlier and more frequent use of the tools available under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA).

In the past three months, there has been a six-fold increase in warning notices issued compared to the same period last year, and twice the number of forced relocations have occurred to resolve tenancy issues.

There have also been significantly more applications for tenancy terminations. In the past three months we have ended 14 tenancies for either disruptive behaviour or rental debt.

Alongside this, we are now introducing a new Tenancy Management Framework that will strike a better balance between our responsibilities as a landlord, the responsibilities of tenants, and the quiet enjoyment of others in the community. This will inform our approach to a range of tenancy issues, including rental arrears, disruptive behaviour and the management of pets. Our approach is about being firm but fair.

To drive further progress, we are rolling out a new Disruptive Behaviour policy to formalise our new approach and guide how our frontline teams respond to disruptive behaviour.

We will still work to understand what’s driving behaviour and refer tenants to specialist social and health services to address underlying issues. We will continue to use notices and relocation to prompt behaviour change.

However, we are also introducing an escalated approach in two situations: where a tenant’s behaviour creates a significant safety issue; or where behaviour is disruptive and persistent, and a household ignores our warnings. In these situations, we will apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to terminate the tenancy – and we will not provide the tenant with another home.

Ultimately, this new approach is designed to provide a clear deterrent for disruptive behaviour and spark behaviour change.

Since 1 July we have been rolling out guidance and training to our frontline teams to support them to act quickly when responding to disruptive behaviour. We are also working to ensure our tenants are aware of the changes and what they mean for how we manage tenancies.

These changes are focused on addressing serious disruptive behaviour. Many of the issues people get in touch with us about are minor things that are common issues between neighbours throughout the country, like noisy cars, lawns not being mowed regularly or how often visitors are calling at a home. We will continue to address these types of concerns through our existing processes.

It is important to stress the approach that we are taking will not have any impact on the majority of Kāinga Ora tenants who already do the right thing, are responsible tenants, and treat their neighbours with respect.

We will regularly publish performance data around how we are responding to disruptive behaviour on our website – this will begin in late-July.

Attributed to Nick Maling, General Manager of National Services

Page updated: 14 July 2024

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