However, before the work was completed KOHC learned people (the family) had moved in without its permission.
They can’t be identified due to a suppression order granted to one of the parents.
A KOHC representative went to the property on November 30, 2021, to meet with them and to offer another, larger house in a different location. But they didn’t want it and refused to sign a tenancy agreement for it.
The family wouldn’t engage again with KOHC until mid-November the following year, when they again refused the alternative property offered to them.
KOHC told the tribunal no rent or other financial contribution had been paid by the family.
The property had only two bedrooms so was considered by KOHC to be overcrowded with seven occupants, and there were still repairs to do.
In response, the family detailed their hardship in trying to find suitable accommodation. They had to move from one place because the children’s school had concerns about it.
They said that contrary to KOHC’s claim, the Totara Street house wasn’t uninhabitable. They got the electrics certified and arranged for the power to be hooked up.
Apart from a section of missing carpet, much of the property was brand new.
They claimed KOHC never asked them to leave; however, they acknowledged not having made any financial contribution for the house other than offering to pay the rates.
The adult woman said she objected to being seen as a “squatter”, as she was “tangata whenua” and therefore entitled to live on that land.
She refused to take the alternative property offered by KOHC as she was offended it had only been offered in response to the family moving into the Totara Street house. Before that, the family had made numerous attempts with various agencies to get suitable accommodation, without success.
She didn’t want her family living in the street where the alternative accommodation was on offer, or any other gang-related area in Gisborne, as she had past dealings with gangs that had been traumatic and she worried for her family’s safety.
The family were open to being rehoused by Kāinga Ora outside any gang-related areas, such as Tolaga Bay, Waihirere, Manutuke, or other small settlement out of town, if need be.
To make a possession order, the tribunal had to be satisfied that:
• The premises involved were residential;
• The applicant was entitled to possession of the premises;
• The person against whom the order was sought didn’t have a right to possess the premises.
Tribunal adjudicator C Price found KHOC had proved those necessary criteria and, in her opinion, there were no circumstances in which the occupants could alternatively have inferred a licence to live in the house.
She understood the occupant’s comment about being tangata whenua was only in relation to her family being called squatters in the KOHC application, rather than being intended as any substantive claim regarding a right to occupy.
Nonetheless she noted that, “Being tangata whenua does not, in itself, provide a (legal) right to be in possession of the premises,
While the Treaty of Waitangi granted Māori the same rights and duties as non-Māori citizens, those duties included compliance with the law.
Granting possession of the house to KHOC on March 28 last year, the adjudicator said she understood KHOC’s representative at the hearing would connect a staff member with the family to urgently find them suitable housing in an area they considered safe.
Totara Street has not been devoid of gang activities in recent times. In August last year, police recovered firearms, ammunition and molotov cocktails from a house that was shot at on a Saturday night and a gang member from that address was arrested.
