STRATEGIC PAPER #113 - THE TAITOKERAU HOMELESSNESS REPORT - PART 1
Market Systems vs. Personal Failure
Severe housing shortages in Te Tai Tokerau are not caused by personal failures or individual flaws. Instead, they are the direct result of a broken housing market. While personal struggles might determine who loses their housing first, the overall scale of homelessness is driven entirely by sky-high housing costs and a severe shortage of affordable homes.
Global Housing Indicators
Global housing research shows a clear truth: local homelessness rates depend heavily on rent costs and housing supply, not just poverty rates. If poverty alone were the main cause, cities with the highest poverty rates would automatically have the most homelessness.
In reality, high-poverty cities with highly affordable housing, like Detroit or Cleveland, have much lower rates of homelessness than wealthy cities with overpriced real estate, like San Francisco or Sydney. Poverty makes people vulnerable, but high housing prices create the actual crisis.
The Musical Chairs Dilemma
To explain how an expensive housing market forces families into homelessness, economists use the game of musical chairs. Imagine 10 people playing with 10 chairs; everyone gets a seat. If one player has a sprained ankle, they will move slower than the others, but because there are enough chairs, they still get to sit down.
However, if the game organisers remove three chairs, three people will be left standing. Because they move slower, the person with the sprained ankle will likely be one of those left without a seat. In this example, a housing market with high prices and low supply is what removes the chairs. Individual problems are just like the "sprained ankle", they only determine who gets pushed out first.
The Taitokerau Income Gap
This global problem causes severe local damage in Te Tai Tokerau, where about 3% of the regional population lacks secure housing. The main economic driver is the massive gap between local household incomes and housing costs. In 2024, the median house price in Northland reached $655,000, while the typical household take-home income after housing costs was just $33,684. This traps low-income families in an expensive rental market where nearly half of all renting households spend more than 30% of their income on rent.
Historical Legacy and Job Losses
This affordability crisis hits at the same time as a major decline in local construction, which has historically been a key source of jobs for Māori men. Residential building consents in Te Tai Tokerau dropped by 31% in the year ending March 2025, pushing the Māori unemployment rate to nearly 12%.
Additionally, historical colonisation and land loss have left a legacy of low homeownership (28% for Māori compared to 57% for New Zealand Europeans). For families who still collectively own ancestral land, outdated Western legal systems and standard banking rules make it very hard to get loans to build papakāinga (communal housing) at scale.
Government Policy Worsens the Shortage
To make matters worse, recent government policy changes have reduced the housing supply. In July 2025, Kāinga Ora cancelled 40 planned housing projects across Northland, cutting 450 future social homes from the region. At the same time, they began selling off existing social housing on the open market. These political moves ignore the harsh realities local people face every day.
Funding Reform and Local Control
To fix severe housing shortages in Te Tai Tokerau over the medium term, policy must shift from short-term crisis fixes to deep structural changes.
Shift Funding Control: The Crown must stop using centralised, slow statistical models and hand funding control directly to regional-led groups like Te Pouahi o Te Tai Tokerau. Real progress comes from grassroots, collective action by local businesses, iwi and hapū.
Papakāinga and Social Policy
Fix Land Financing: We need legal reforms for Māori freehold land, creating a state-backed mortgage guarantee scheme for papakāinga to bypass standard requirements for individual land titles.
Stop Social Housing Sales: Kāinga Ora must immediately stop selling public housing assets in Northland and bring back the 40 cancelled housing projects, focusing on one- and two-bedroom units.
Ban Discharges into Homelessness: We need a strict law that stops state care, prison, or health facilities from releasing any individual directly into homelessness.
Support Outreach over Punishment: Local councils must stop using fines and punishments against the homeless, and instead fund outreach teams that treat people with basic human dignity.
