Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki report on violence and housing poverty

Fri 27 Sep 2024

He Whare, He Taonga – Connecting Mahi Tūkino and Housing Poverty in Hauraki: Wāhine give voice to passionate solutions shows the link between housing poverty and violence in Hauraki. The report calls on the government to partner with wāhine from Hauraki to solve housing poverty and violence.

photo of a window with light shining in on an empty wall

Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki report

From 2018-2020, Te Whāriki Manawāhine Research spoke with wāhine from Hauraki about their experiences of mahi tūkino and housing poverty. Mahi tūkino included family violence, sexual violence, and the transmission of historical and intergenerational violence. They found mahi tūkino and housing poverty were strongly connected, each making the other worse, and trapping whānau in cycles of harm. The report, He Whare, He Taonga – Connecting Mahi Tūkino and Housing Poverty in Hauraki: Wāhine give voice to passionate solutions (2024), says:

“...whānau violence, and systemic entrapment forces many Hauraki Wāhine and their whānau into homelessness”
“...profound challenges in finding suitable and sustainable housing … force them back into the violent situations they were trying to escape.”

The wāhine interviewed in the research also offered compassionate solutions:

“...where tamariki are raised in non-violent villages founded on mātauranga me tikanga Māori. These are villages where Wāhine Māori and their whānau are fully supported to recover from their lived experiences of mahi tūkino, and they are thriving.”

Te Whāriki used a mana wāhine methodology, which found 4 themes:

Pū — the desire for home, including safety, stability, security, self-determination, connection to culture, people and communities, and raising healthy mokopuna.
Rā — creating wellness, which includes addressing the roots of violence and housing poverty, and supporting whānau aspiration.
Kā — correcting barriers and building systems that are wāhine- and tamariki-centred. Participants shared that engaging with state systems (particularly Oranga Tamariki and Kāinga Ora) was often worse than the violence in their home.
Ū — growing compassionate solutions, based on listening, believing, understanding and action to support healing.

He Whare, He Taonga report includes chapters of participants’ voices, key informants’ voices, and a targeted demographic and literature snapshot which provides international and local context.

In announcing the report, Paora Moyle – Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki - Research Manager said:

"This project intentionally illuminates the voices of wāhine Māori, enabling them to be key contributors towards housing solutions in Hauraki. It is from this standpoint that we come to understand societal violence, whānau violence, and related persistent housing poverty experienced by Hauraki wāhine Māori and their whānau."

In an article for The Post, Paora reflected on the research writing:

"Our research backed up what so many thought – that there is absolutely a direct link between domestic violence and housing poverty and housing inequity.

We heard about a discriminatory, disjointed and desensitised system that fails to regard the human connection and responsibility to respect a māmā’s dignity.

And Paora also wrote:

"We came away from our research knowing that our wāhine possess powerful wisdom to change housing poverty forever in a way that achieves intergenerational wellness for the good of all.

It starts with compassion. It ends with collaboration.

Like cross-party, bipartisan commitments from the top to tackle this head-on, enabling the people on the ground to create multi-generational housing solutions together.

Locally led, with whānau-at-the heart builds for koroua, kuia and mokopuna. Easy to say, hard to do."

Administering poverty, E-tangata, 18.08.2024

The green light flicks on for tougher beneficiary sanctions, The Bulletin, 13.08.2024

Agencies helping women escape abuse struggle with demand, RNZ, 07.08.2024

Aotearoa is a beautiful country but there's a lot of ugly in it, The Post, 04.08.2024

Some Māori living in mangrove swamps in Hauraki, RNZ, 03.08.2024

Fears women can't afford to leave abusive relationships amid cost of living crisis, RNZ, 02.08.2024

Direct link between domestic violence and housing poverty, research finds, RNZ, 31.07.2024

New Research Proves Link Between Domestic Violence & Housing Poverty, Scoop, 31.07.2024

This isn’t a cost of living crisis, it’s a pandemic of poverty, The Press, 31.07.2024

Image: Kevin Ortiz on Unsplash