Look past the gunfire and see the home truths

The recent spate of shootings in Ō tara has reignited the media frenzy on youth gangs, stolen guns and fear in South Auckland. Behind these media headlines is a community desperately wanting the best for their kids, but too scared to let them walk to school alone. Behind these media headlines is a community that has been on the receiving end of years of poorly conceived public policy which has resulted in stressed, impoverished and hungry locals.

Ōtara, like many pockets of South Auckland, was conceived out of a few farm paddocks, to house an imported labour force from the Pacific to keep the country’s industrial engine ticking over through the 1960s and 1970s. However, following the liberalisation of our economy in the 1980s, many of these jobs were stripped away, along with protections around worker rights and the social safety net. Apart from the erosion of jobs, the dissipating rates of home ownership among Pacific people is socially and financially debilitating.

In the late 1940s, ten-pound Poms and their European counterparts flooded New Zealand in their thousands, and luckily for them, and for existing New Zealand citizens, the Government of 1950 enabled families to buy the state houses they lived in. This empowered a generation of asset-poor New Zealanders to become participants in the Kiwi dream, deeply invested in their communities and able to create wealth for themselves and their families.

For whatever reason this policy was not pushed to the same degree for Pacific families in Ō tara and Mā ngere in the 1960s and 70s. This lack of foresight created financial insecurity and poor social cohesion, and was exacerbated in the 1990s, when state houses were sold to developers, or tenants pressured out of their homes due to different policy whims of successive Governments. Census data shows that between 2006 and 2018, the proportion of Pacific families living in rental properties rose from 58 per cent to 81 per cent. That means that fewer than one in five of us own our homes.

It is this unacceptable social condition that should be of greater concern than the recent shootings on the streets around my old hood. Not because guns aren’t dangerous, but because if we don’t give hard-working families in suburbs like Ōtara, Māngere, Manurewa and Panmure the support they need to buy their own homes, they won’t establish deeper roots in their communities – and our young people will continue to be preyed upon by gangs. The equity that comes from home ownership gives wha¯nau the means to invest in small businesses, increases financial literacy and establishes a financial legacy for future generations.

A verse often quoted by our local churches says that without a vision the people will perish. And from what I hear from families, they are busting themselves to cover rent, without the longterm vision of knowing if they will ever be able to place a stake in the ground by having a home to call their own. This uncertainty is passed on to their kids, making them easy pickings for cashrich gangs, who promise easy money and a shortcut to the financial stability their parents can’t provide.

It can no longer be treated as an issue for the too-hard basket, especially for decision makers. I know of many families who have benefited from the NZ Housing Foundation’s different offerings, which include shared equity and rent-to-own schemes.

Home ownership creates the financial foundation for our wha¯nau to prosper and ensures our next generation has a meaningful connection to the community, beyond painting murals in the town centre or holding happy festivals. If South Auckland families are given the tools to determine their own economic outcomes, then the gang-related news headlines will become a thing of the past and fewer resources will be needed for the ‘‘bottom of the cliff’’ solutions often touted.

Kids are easy pickings for cash-rich gangs, who promise easy money and a shortcut to the financial stability their parents can’t provide.