#53 - Ali Hamlin-Paenga - A Māori-led response to homelessness

In this episode, we meet Ali Hamlin-Paenga, CEO of Te Matapihi, the national Māori housing sector peak body. Ali has been part of Te Matapihi in three different roles, from board member to deputy chair to CEO, and she brings to the work a framework that is, in its foundations, entirely different from the frameworks that govern most housing policy in Aotearoa. For Te Matapihi, the Māori housing system is built on five elements: wai, kai, whānau, whenua, and whakapapa. The housing policy world tends to see a house. Te Matapihi sees a system of relationships between people, land and identity that a house either supports or it does not. In this episode, Ali talks about the distinction between homelessness and what she calls houselessness, and why emergency housing is not a home. She talks about He Ara Hiki Mauri — five years of negotiation across two governments to build a genuinely Māori-led response that refuses to be a template, because every rohe knows what it needs. She talks about whakapapa as a practical tool, not a cultural abstraction, and what it means to bring someone home. And she talks about the cycle she has watched repeat across her career, and why the system's assumption that the ultimate product for Māori is an affordable rental is precisely the wrong place to start. We'd like to thank Ali for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.And don't forget to subscribe to the CHA Hub Podcast — wherever you get your podcasts from.The CHA Hub Podcast is sponsored by our Founding Partner, Westpac New Zealand.