The government needs to prioritise getting Māori into their own warm, dry, affordable homes as they continue to be disproportionately impacted by the housing crisis, a public health expert says.
It comes following criticism that red tape and barriers at the bank are preventing whānau building houses on their own land.
Massey University professor of public health Chris Cunningham said while most Māori tamariki were born healthy, too many were born into a risky home environment.
He said the housing crisis was badly affecting Māori, with some facing mould and respiratory diseases whilst living in rentals.
"They either have very poor quality housing, where there might be overcrowding, where there might be dampness and cold and where there might be danger in the house in terms of things which are broken. Or they have unstable housing, in that mum and dad have to move around and rent in different places or maybe share a home with whānau."
Data from 2018, from Stats NZ and the census, showed that Māori were more likely to live in unsuitable, crowded homes and in homes affected by dampness and mould, when compared to the European and total populations.
RNZ reported on the extra hoops Māori must jump through to secure a mortgage to build on ancestral land, but Cunningham said Māori also struggle to get out of unhealthy rentals and into their own homes because they tend to have families younger.
"We don't have the ability to save up for a deposit, to complete tertiary education, to have a mortgage, to buy a house and have all of that in place before we start having children. We tend to have our children first and so we need stable housing much earlier."
Māori are disproportionately impacted by the housing crisis, making up 33.4 percent of those who are severely housing deprived and more than half of the applicants on the public housing waitlist.
Good quality housing played heavily into good health outcomes for Māori, Cunningham said.
"We have a broad policy in New Zealand of 'Whānau Ora' and houses are the places that whānau spend most of their time. So houses and homes are really the best setting for whānau ora, I think that's something we need to think about."
Wayne Knox, the general manager of Māori housing advocacy group Te Matapihi, said as the cost of living rose, more and more Māori were looking to move home to their ancestral whenua.
But some whānau were heading home to substandard housing or no shelter at all.
"We've got dozens of whānau who are living in cow sheds, under tarpaulins, with no running water, with actually no waste water. That's not healthy, our whānau get by, but it's not healthy. And in a lot of these situations people also have chronic health conditions before ending up in those scenarios.
"The research is telling us that it's actually killing our people," Knox warned.
Knox said housing stress was impacting mental wellbeing.
"If you can't afford to pay the rent today, if you can't afford to put food on the table, you're going to choose to feed your kids because you pay the rent and that's stressful."
Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi echoed that and said the party wanted to see the government push to remove the barriers to building on whenua Māori, to improve Māori health outcomes.
"If you've got leaky, damp homes where our whānau are living, of course it's going to affect health disparities in the health index for Māori. So having a warm, safe affordable home for whānau to be able to provide that for their tamariki will make a huge difference to health outcomes."
Cunningham also said building papakāinga - community housing built on ancestral land - improved cultural and mental well-being for Māori, for whom whenua and identity were intertwined.
"You've got the cultural transmission of language and tikanga and those sorts of things. That all works really well. The difficulty still is the financial barriers to making it happen."
There is a high level of interest in building papakāinga, with online enquiries into Te Puni Kōkiri papakāinga funding applications more than doubling in 2021, with an average of 148 per month, compared to an average of 25 per month in 2020.
RNZ
