Kāinga Ora? Panel discussion on the Crisis in Social Housing

Ballooning waiting lists, families in emergency housing, fatal fires at boarding houses, homelessness especially among Māori and young people: what has gone wrong with social housing, and how could it be fixed? Our panellists will draw on their extensive experience to address these questions

Speakers: Shiloh Groot, Māhera Maihi, Alan Johnson, Jackie Paul, Michael Sharp

Date: Thursday, 8 August
Time: 6.30pm – 8pm
Venue: Stone Lecture Theatre (801-316), Level Three, Building 801, Auckland Law School, 9 Eden Crescent

Shiloh Groot

Shiloh Groot (Ngāti Uenukukopako, Ngāti Pikiao) is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Auckland. Their areas of work include homelessness and urban poverty. Their research adopts an indigenous, community, critical and societal approach and employs (visual) qualitative methodologies. Shiloh is committed to research that is theoretically informed and socially responsive.

Māhera Maihi

Māhera Maihi and her charity Mā te Huruhuru have recently established a new youth homeless transitional facility for Mā te Huruhuru in South Auckland. This is part of her work helping Māori rangatahi escape from cycles of family violence, gangs, and poverty. Māhera’s work draws on her own lived experience and a phenomenal amount of determination and energy.

Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson Alan is a semi-retired consultant policy analyst/planner and has been a housing activist for almost 40 years. This activism has involved leading protests against homelessness, as a trustee of community housing organisations, housing related research and analysis for NGO's and involvement in self-build housing projects. He is a life member of Child Poverty Action Group and was its housing spokesperson for over 20 years. Recently he was involved in Action Stations' Peoples' Review of Public Housing and in 2021 provided expert evidence for the Waitangi Tribunal's Wai 2750 investigation into Māori homelessness.

Jackie Paul

Jackie Paul (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga) is completing a doctorate in urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. She is also a researcher for Pūrangakura Māori Research Centre at the University of Auckland. She has contributed to much housing policy work, such as a paper for the Public Policy Institute entitled ‘Transformative Housing Policy for Aotearoa NZ’.
 

Michael Sharp

Michael Sharp is a civil litigation barrister specialising, among other things, in Māori issues. He was instrumental in establishing and running a housing law clinic in Tauranga, and is a member of the State Housing Action Group. He has been involved as counsel in the Waitangi Tribunal’s Housing Services and Policy Kaupapa Enquiry.