Iwi calls for more funding to retrofit cold, damp homes

A significant number of whānau from a Taranaki iwi are struggling to heat their homes and living in the cold, says Ngāti Maru's chief executive.

Anaru Marshall told a Reducing Energy Hardship conference in New Plymouth this week the iwi ran a housing retro-fit programme and staff saw whānau on a daily basis using as little energy as possible.

"We're coming across whānau using the bare minimum of energy, simply because the cost of it is too high, and if they are not going to divert funds from feeding their families, they're gonna go cold, so that's what happens," Marshall said.

"What interests me though is that this is the energy region of the country, so why have we got hardship? Those are the questions we've got to ask, I think?"

One way the government could help would be to fund retro-fit programmes, like the one at Ngāti Maru over a longer time frame, Marshall said.

"What they do is they set up a project and it's for four years and then that's the end of it and it gets revised and maybe they go onto another programme. The funding doesn't get left in one area of the community long enough," he said.

"I think we need to look at it over time and get programmes that can make a dent say, over a 10-year period, and anything else that comes in politically, for example, meningitis, rheumatic fever, well they get added on - they don't consume resources out of the parent programme."

That kind of funding would allow Ngāti Maru to do a more thorough job with Te Puni Kōkiri funding for retro-fitting Māori homes, he said.

"We get a limited budget so we can only do so much. That's the sad thing about it - we're talking about the deep retro-fits taking care of every issue in the home, we couldn't afford that. We could probably do two or three homes and that would be our budget expired."

The iwi focused on the big issues like putting on roofs, securing doors and windows and installing insulation, Marshall said.

A popular suggestion at the conference was for a mandatory energy performance rating scheme for all New Zealand homes. Marshall thought it was a great idea.

"I think that's brilliant because if the house is certified that's something a home buyer can be looking for because they want to keep their family safe.

"A LIM [Land Information Memorandum] report that you get from a council before purchasing a home won't tell you those types of things."

Waikato Tainui energy navigator Hinerangi Pere said her role was about helping whānau understand energy and the language, and then supporting them to achieve their energy goals.

There was no doubt energy hardship was an issue for Māori, Pere said.

"We all know that we've got nannies raising tamariki that are living in damp homes. We know we've got whānau living in homes below the Healthy Homes Standard. That means those whare are inefficient, which means it's going to cost those whānau more to run those homes."

Energy efficiency was a housing issue and a health issue, Pere said.

"But I believe that the solutions for addressing energy hardship for Māori communities has to come from Māori communities. A model of by Māori for Māori.

"So, that could be that you have a marae that is looking at generating energy from the roof of their marae and they want to send the energy from that to wherever it needs to go in the community, which could be kaumātua whānau."

Pere said solutions had to come from communities, whānau, and people who knew what was happening within their communities.