Race and Ethnicity

It was February 2020 when UN expert Leilani Farha declared homelessness as a human rights crisis in New Zealand— violating Kiwi’s rights to housing; health; security; and life. Yet, this May, approaching five years from this statement, the OECD has published a paper revealing that the rate of homelessness in New Zealand is one of the highest in the developed world.

Homelessness predominantly affects marginalized communities such as LGBTI+, disabled, and immigrant groups. The indigenous Māori people, however, are most acutely affected. This has engendered investigation by the Waitangi Tribunal: a standing commission of inquiry that was established to respond to claims brought by Māori to protect the rights and terms promised in the Treaty of Waitangi from breaches by the Crown.

In May 2023, the Waitangi Tribunal published their first report as part of their broader inquiry into historical and modern-day homelessness faced by Māori. This report, Kāinga Kore: The Stage One Report of the Housing Policy and Services Kaupapa Inquiry on Māori Homelessness, alleges the Crown’s failure to provide state services and support, thereby limiting Māori access to adequate housing. This is alleged for both rural and urban areas. Recently, the Waitangi Tribunal has turned to investigating past housing issues faced by Māori in New Zealand with its August 2024 paper: The Private Rental Market and Māori: 1991 to 2021.

Following these reports, the Waitangi Tribunal plans to address the use and development of Māori land for housing; housing policy; the regulation of the housing market; the provision of social and public housing; and housing’s relationship to poor physical and mental health.

Farha, as a UN representative, has proposed many solutions to New Zealand’s homelessness crisis. These solutions include imposing a capital gains tax on the sale of residential properties; rent freezes; innovative uses of vacant homes, and tighter regulation of short term rental platforms. Along with these suggestions, she highlighted the importance of working with Māori in administering the housing programmes created to ameliorate this crisis, to honour this as a right established in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

New Zealand’s government’s 2022 launch of the National Māori housing strategy, MAIHI Ka Ora, is an encouraging response in this regard. This strategy is designed to support Te Tirito o Waitangi’s aims of equity by ensuring that housing solutions are local and Maori-led. Importantly, MAIHI Ka Ora also prioritizes the sustainability of their housing solutions, along with supporting Māori’s connection to their papakāinga, their ancestral land.

How Māori came to suffer displacement and homelessness in their own ancestral land is a complex issue but certainly originates in British colonial violence, with an estimated 97% of Māori land being stolen in the twentieth century. What remained of Māori land was misappropriated through exploitative laws and practices enforced by the Crown and later, the settlers’ government. Māori have thereby suffered from poor employment, housing, and education. It follows then, that the government and the Crown must answer their significant responsibility to the Māori people through reparations. To this end, curing the staggering rates of homelessness in Māori communities is essential.

 Yet, in a news article released by the UN this October, the Acting Chief Human Rights Commissioner of New Zealand, Saunoamaali’i Dr Karanina Sumeo, has stated that the Government has halted efforts to realize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Sumeo has also stated that the government is ‘reviewing’ the role of The Waitangi Tribunal. Therefore, whilst we may have hope in the Waitangi Tribunal and MAIHI Ka Ora, further pressure on New Zealand’s government is required— to impel their implementation of the recommendations made by the UN and the Waitangi Tribunal and to end homelessness.

Editor: Leah Russon Watkins