In this Re: series, My First Whare, made in partnership with Westpac, we hear how financial education changed the lives of five whānau, and helped them buy their first home. Watch the full series here on TVNZ+
Russell and Crystal Hockley were being crushed by the debt which had taken over their lives for nearly two decades and they started to wonder if they should declare themselves bankrupt.
The Taranaki couple owed well over $100,000 and were being swamped by interest payments.
But, just two years later, thanks to education on turning their financial situation around, they find themselves the proud owners of their first home.
It was a journey they couldn’t have taken on their own, one they took with the support of Ka Uruora, a collective iwi charitable trust that offers financial literacy training, and support with saving and housing.
Ka Uruora taught them to look at what they were spending, where their debt sat and how to get out of their situation.
Their dilemma was not unusual. A lack of financial education has long been a major barrier to home ownership for New Zealanders.
“It’s a bit like intergenerational trauma, there’s intergenerational behaviours,” says Ngamata Skipper, Ka Uruora Taranaki Facilitator. “One of my skills is around people to stop romanticising their situations. So for people to be upfront around where their money is spent, documenting and investigating where their money goes.”
Credit cards maxed out
Russell (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Ruahinerangi, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Mutunga, Te Atiawa, Taranaki iwi, Ngā Rauru, Te Aupouri, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) and Crystal (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) had 10 credit cards between them, and each one was maxed out.
“Including our van, we had $112,000 debt,” says Crystal. “So we’d pay the payments, which was really just the interest and a little bit of the principal, but then we were redrawing on that to buy the groceries. And it had been like that for the last 15 or 20 years.”
Like many New Zealanders, their debt outstripped their earnings – by mid-2024, the average New Zealand household owed about one-and-a-half times what they earned in a year.
For the Hockley whānau, this brought feelings of isolation and despair.
“Russell and I had to have the chat about, ‘Is it maybe best that we go bankrupt?’” says Crystal. “Instead of actually saying, look we’ve got a problem, and extending it out further than just ourselves. Because nobody, nobody around us knew that we were so deep in debt.”
But that’s when Ka Uruora came into their lives. They took a financial literacy course and, at the end of it, they decided to cut up all their credit cards.
They continued to get further support from the organisation and were able to pay down their debt.
Now they’ve been able to buy their first whare with the support of a partnership between Ka Uruora and Westpac.
Iwi help
Another couple who climbed out of the debt trap with help and advice from their iwi is CJ Gilbert and Kataraina Davis.
Kataraina’s iwi Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei has a home ownership initiative supported by banks like Westpac which CJ and Kataraina were able to take advantage of. As a result, they were able to buy a home in an iwi-led papakainga development in Ōrākei, Tāmaki Makaurau.
Lisa Davis, CEO of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust, says the housing development centres around intergenerational homes.
“The premise behind that was to ensure that we’re getting whānau coming back together and looking after each other,” she says. “It’s how do we congregate? How do we come together? Bringing people back home means they’re closer to the marae, closer to who they are, and really engaging back to the iwi.”
CJ (Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa) lived in social housing for a large part of his life and home ownership wasn’t something he could imagine ever achieving.
“Just being in the dark, not having the opportunity, or someone coming to you and saying, ‘Would you like to buy a house?’ It kind of totally cuts you out from the whole idea of ‘I’m going to be a homeowner’,” he says.
Added to that, his credit debt was “just out the gate”.
But with the help of the iwi and the bank they were able to get information about home ownership schemes available to them, get their debt under control and eventually to move into their own place.
Kataraina (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and Ngāti Hine) says when the final approval came through she was in a work meeting and “the tears started falling”.
Their emotional journey shows what can be achieved when whānau get the education in financial literacy they need, and have the support of organisations and banks to make their homeownership dream a reality.
To see stories from these and other whānau featured in My First Whare, watch the full series now on TVNZ+
* This content is sponsored by Westpac.
