Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua

14 December 2018: Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua Principal Investigator Jenny Lee-Morgan talks on air about her team's research and why the work being done at Te Puea Memorial Marae is successful at getting people off the streets for good.

Te Puea manaakitanga tangata kaimahi - core team led by Hurimoana Dennis. Photo: The Treehouse Creative.

04 December 2018: The Rangatahi Ahu within the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua research programme recently led three wānanga in Kaikohe, Auckland, and Dunedin. The Rangatahi Ahu engaged particularly with young Māori around their aspirations for and perceptions of housing. James Berghan, Maia Ratana, and Jackie Paul made a video summary of their thoughts after the last wānanga in Dunedin.

20 September 2018: The grass-roots model an Auckland Marae developed to house hundreds of homeless people is being seen as a viable way to deal with urban homelessness. For the last year, Te Puea Marae has worked with the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge on a research project to show why its transitional housing programme has been a success.

Dr Jessica Hutchings at the Te Puea Marae. Photo: RNZ/ John Boynton

19 September 2018: NZ Herald Māori Affairs reporter, Michael Neilson, takes a look at what make Te Puea Marae special and outlines the Building Better research project into transitional housing.

"A homeless father carried his son on his shoulders from the opposite side of Māngere to Te Puea Marae, because he heard they might have space for them to stay.

"They did, and now they are two of the 332 people Te Puea Marae has helped find homes since it opened its doors to homeless whānau on July 24, 2016, in the midst of Auckland's housing crisis."

Te Puea Marae chairman Hurimoana Dennis said they had been successful at helping homeless Māori because they did not judge. Photo: NZ Herald

19 September 2018: Māori Television's Jessica Tyson covered research around Te Puea Marae and its work to address homelessness that was released at a symposium at the marae on 19 September.

Over the past year, researchers from the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge has been working with the marae to develop the Te Manaaki Tāngata E Rua programme.

The research aims to better understand why Manaaki Tāngata E Rua is so successful at supporting whānau Māori who are homeless using tikanga Māori.

The project is co-led by Unitec Institute of Technology's Rau Hoskins and University of Waikato Associate Professor Jenny-Lee Morgan.

17 September 2018: Te Puea Memorial Marae plans to share what it has learned about tackling urban homelessness.

It is holding a symposium on Wednesday, 19 September with researchers from Ko ngā wā kāinga hei whakamahorahora - the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge - who have been working with the Mangere-based marae over the past year.

Research co-leaders Rau Hoskins and Jenny-Lee Morgan say having the ability to study what works in Māori communities has given new insights.

17 September 2018: Te Puea Memorial Marae and researchers from Ko ngā wā kāinga hei whakamāhorahora - the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities (BBHTC) National Science Challenge - will hold their first symposium about their research and share initial insights that centre on the work of the Marae to address urban homelessness. The hui will be held at Te Puea Memorial Marae in Auckland on Wednesday 19 September.

For the past year, the research team has been working with the Marae to co-develop the Te Manaaki o te Marae research programme.

Key to the research is to better understand why their Manaaki Tāngata E Rua transitional housing programme is so successful at supporting Whānau Maori who are homeless.

26 July 2018: Podcast from Indigenous Urbanism: Jade Kake interviews Building Better Homes, Towns & Cities Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua researcher, Rau Hoskins. "On this episode of Indigenous Urbanism, we travel to Tāmaki Makaurau, our largest city, to look at how Māori designers are working alongside mana whenua to re-shape the city to better reflect their unique identity and culture and to create a distinctive sense of place that benefits us all."

3 July 2018: On 17 and 18 June, Te Herenga Waka hosted around 30 Māori researchers connected to the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge. Under the banner of the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua strategic research area, and led by Director Māori, Dr Jessica Hutchings, the hui provided opportunities for kairangahau to share their ideas, methods and approaches on how to actively support Māori aspirations for long-term affordable and healthy housing that meets the needs of their communities.

8 March 2018: Jessica Hutchings, the director Māori on the building better homes national science challenge, spoke with Radio Waatea, she says her team has been looking at how to create culturally fit-for-purpose housing both in the regions and the cities where space is short.

She says housing is more than bedrooms, a roof and a place to put the car. "We talk about a housing shortage. We talk about whānau Māori being life long renters. But also in the Challenge we are really interested in supporting the well being of whānau into houses so it is not just about building houses," Dr Hutchings says.

7 March 2018: New research conducted by Ko ngā wā kāinga hei whakamāhorahora - Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities (BBHTC) National Science Challenge - has uncovered traditional approaches to housing that stand up to climate change and strengthen communities.

13 February 2018: Making a highly visible and disruptive contribution to the housing, urban design, and planning debate was the aim of a Māori Housing Think Tank hui, convened on 24 January to establish a kaupapa Māori research programme for the ‘Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua’ research area.

10 January 2018: Home for Māori starts with the ancestral home-place: important to Māori cultural identity. Home-place links are reinforced by physical associations with land, whakapapa, proximity to extended family, experience of te reo, and the importance of the marae. Home is about whānau, whenua and whakapapa. However, nearly 85% of Māori in New Zealand live in urban areas: a small proportion of whom are mana whenua, who may have remaining, or regained ancestral land. This latter aspect has enabled exemplar urban papakāinga developments in Auckland and Wellington. There are also increasing examples of rural papakāinga, where Māori have returned to their ancestral land to build housing. Ironically this trend, and the hard won successes, are the result of urban homelessness, or the struggle to survive with impossible rental payments.

16 November 2017: With the launch of the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua research programme, the Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology received $700,000 in Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge funding to research new designs for sustainable and affordable homes and identify how these contribute to health and wellbeing for Māori.

May 2016: Kāinga Tuatahi is an innovative residential development on Ngāti Whātua Orākei tribal land. The development embodies the principles, objectives and aspirations of the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities Challenge.