Te Puea Memorial Marae

The Marae named for the legendary Queen of the Maori, Te Puea, with it’s auspicious title, existed as a bubble of peace at Mangere Bridge beside State Highway 20 and opposite Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour from it’s opening in 1965, until it rose to national prominence by responding to a new social problem in style in 2016.

A burgeoning housing crisis had hit the new supercity with record immigration forcing rents higher and higher, leaving a growing underclass of mainly Pacific families with nowhere to live. This collateral damage of a health economy was not without precedent but was escalating well out of control. With media outlets spurred on by new social media institutions in bringing this problem to the surface, in May 2016, the good folk of urban marae Te Puea were the first to respond in a practical way.

Picking up where the agencies of government and Council had failed, they flung open the double doors of the Memorial Wharenui and welcomed folk who had nowhere else to go. The response by the public was of wholehearted support. When a family with a newborn baby were featured on a news item moving from their car into Te Puea, floods of donations began to back up the marae’s generosity, some through the ‘givealittle’ website. Then retailer ‘The Warehouse’ promised to match every donation.

Calling their programme simply Manaaki Tangata (help the people) the Marae Committee forced the Social Development department to engage with them, helping to find more permanent homes and assistance for the dozens of refugees from the streets. Their chairman, Hurimoana Dennis, immediately looked to springboard from the response and asked public to upsize their response by allowing homeless people to live in their spare rooms.

Through a long wet winter, Manaaki Tangata continued, until the committee took a break from offering overnight shelter at the end of August 2016, having rehoused 60 people and sheltered, fed and bathed countless more. Extra resources including $98,000 of donations were shipped out to four other charitable trusts. Manurewa Marae became the new “Whakapiki Ora’ with hundreds of broke and troubled families heading in their direction while the government debated the ‘Housing Legislation Amendment Bill,” which may or may not influence the housing situation.

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