TE ŌHANGA MAURI - PRIORITY #2 - BUILD HOMES FOR WHĀNAU, NOT FOR PROFIT
Why It Is Harder to Find a Home in the North
In Taitokerau, we are facing a "Housing Paradox" where, despite our region's vast forests and natural resources, affordable shelter remains out of reach for many. As of mid-2025, the median house price in Northland sits at approximately $635,000, while the median annual household income is roughly $80,245. This means a typical home now costs 6.2 times the average family's income—a ratio that classifies the region as "severely unaffordable". With families now required to spend more than 37% of their total income just to service a mortgage, our whānau are being forced into overcrowded rentals or emergency housing, proving that the current system prioritises investor profit over the basic human right to a stable home.
This problem exists because the current system treats a house as a financial asset—a way to make money for investors (what we call Chrematistics)—rather than a basic human right or a place for a family to thrive (what we call Te Ōhanga Mauri). Instead of seeing land as an ancestor to be lived on and cared for, the colonial system treats it as a static object to be traded for profit.
10 Steps to Build a Better Future
We can fix our housing by reconnecting our homes to our land and our people through these actionable steps:
Use Our Own Wood: Use high-quality, locally processed timber from our regional forests to build our houses.
Create "Farm-to-Whare" Chains: Link our forests directly to building sites to cut out expensive middlemen and keep material costs low.
Back Our Own People: Expand the Ngāpuhi Investment Fund (Tupu Tonu) to underwrite and fund large-scale housing projects on Māori land.
Activate Papakāinga: Reform regulations to allow for high-density, communal living where families share resources on ancestral land.
Build "Whare Ora": Deploy healthy, kit-set homes that use local materials and are designed for our subtropical climate.
Fix the Lending Rules: Work with institutions to bypass the "Prudential Wall" that prevents families from getting loans on Māori land.
Use Local Sovereign Capital: Create regional mutuals, like Te Au Rawa, to provide home loans that don't rely on big commercial banks.
Share the Power: Design communities that use shared solar micro-grids and water systems to lower the daily cost of living.
Think Generations Ahead: Shift our investment focus from quick profits to an "infinite time horizon" where the goal is intergenerational stability.
Prescribe Warm Homes: Direct health funding into insulation and heating because a dry house is the best "vaccine" for our tamariki.
Making It Happen
Key Stakeholders: Tupu Tonu (Ngāpuhi Investment Fund), local Hapū authorities, and Regional/District Councils.
Theoretical Minimum Time Frame: 3 to 5 years to establish the funding models and begin large-scale local construction.
Who benefits from things staying as they are?: Property speculators and offshore banks who profit from high interest rates, rising house prices, and rent extraction.
Who benefits from this solution?: Our children who will grow up in healthy environments, and whānau who can finally return to their ancestral land with dignity.
