Te Whānau o Waipareira Developing Housing & First Rate Medical Facility

The old adage when you want something done right you have to do it yourself has become second nature to us when it comes to providing housing and health for Māori, consequently Te Whānau o Waipareira are building Whānau Ora Precinct in Tāmaki Makaurau.

With an aging population, rising cost of living, a stressed health system and huge housing shortage, we want to do the right thing by our communities so we have partnered with Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Collectively we are developing two strategic properties that will provide homes for kaumātua, kuia and whānau with disabilities, plus a Whānau Ora/Health and Wellness Centre in Mangere.

Along Hospital Road in Mangere is the health sector that has millions of dollars’ worth of health investment in it by the Crown, but it is barely moving to accommodate the increasing needs of one of the fastest growing populations in Aotearoa. Right now our Whānau Ora Centre in West Auckland serves the needs of around 30,000 whānau a year and we wanted to duplicate that in a much bigger way.

Our Whānau Ora Precinct in Hospital Road Mangere will have four times that capacity and capability. In Henderson we are on 5,000 square meters and with the new project it will be closer to 22,000 square meters of care and auxiliary space with all the facilities required from diagnostics, scan capacity, day surgeries – you name it. We build it and then we lease to specialists to deliver the best services in a modern space.

Within that zone we are also constructing social needs and social care housing for kaumātua, kuia and special needs whānau in a community-oriented space that includes a whare manaaki.

A lot of our elderly people have worked their guts out their whole lives on low incomes and in many instances been under-employed and poorly paid. So the ability for them to have something put away for their retirement is now proving to be tough. Traditionally many whānau try to house their elderly with them, however that option is proving challenging with limited space in their whare, and the additional cost.

What we have to do is start targeting our support to our people who are often an afterthought as generally non-Māori not only hold the majority of the resources and decisions on planning, their communities attend to themselves as the priority but always do so at the expense of our equality.

What we have to do is keep pushing ourselves forward for equal treatment through the challenges that are exhibited in health, education, welfare, justice and housing. So that’s what we are currently doing along Hospital Road.

The 134 units in the housing part of our development are currently coming out of the ground and you can see the substructural work underway. A lot of money is spent on piling, foundations, future-proofing and earthquake-proofing the build. All the plumbing, electricity and cabling installations won’t be simple as this site is in the upper reach of the Tāmaki estuary so it has significant geo structural issues like land instability and flooding. We have to ensure we are meticulous in this process with enough pumping stations and precautions making this a very expensive and timely build. However, it’s in a prime spot as it’s on Middlemore Station which is the fourth largest station in Tāmaki Makaurau with something like 10,000 people going through there every day.

We have to build close to all the amenities so whānau aren’t push out to the extremities like they usually are where it is made tough for them.

Te Whānau o Waipareira are extending ourselves because this is a great investment opportunity. We have tried other ways but Auckland Council have everything locked up and to try and undo that is futile. We refuse to be passive waiting idly on the sidelines for people to stand over us, then contract us but contract us for failure.

The other reason we are involved here is our strong relationship with Ngā Tai ki Tāmaki who are big land holders and we’ve brought the land and working in partnership with them on this venture.

It is us doing this to ensure that once again, Māori are the solution, not the problem when it comes to supporting and building communities for all whānau into the future.