Ngāti Kahungunu want to turn the Fruitpackers Lodge on police land in Hastings into an accommodation development where providers can give live-in support to those who have been arrested or charged by police. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
Iwi in Hastings want to transform a fruitpackers lodge on police land into a revolutionary space to keep whānau out of prisons.
But they are struggling to get support from the local council because it backs on to flash new housing developments.
Omahu Rd is a busy arterial route through Hastings, near the Hawke's Bay Expressway - the main road to Napier - and home to Hawke's Bay Hospital.
It is also where the "Fruitpackers Lodge" is, a quiet space which has been a home away from home for hundreds of recognised seasonal employer scheme workers since it opened in 2009.
The property recently changed hands - it's now owned by the police, who have been working with iwi on an accommodation development which they hope will be a gamechanger for whānau battling the justice system.
The idea is for the hundreds of rooms to become places where providers can give live-in support to those who have been arrested or charged by police.
There would be kaupapa Māori services such as health, budgeting, support for māmā and pēpi and pathways for them to find jobs and stay out of prison.
Choices Kahungunu Health Services chief executive and midwife Jean Te Huia said the idea was to "stop the cyclic movement of our children through state care, through the justice system and into prison".
Ngahiwi Tomoana is ex-chair of local iwi Ngāti Kahungunu and has worked closely with the deputy police commissioner for iwi and communities, Wally Haumaha, on the same strategy - though Tomoana said it was not their idea.
"We've just picked up the vision of the Pita Sharples', and the Rose Peres and the Tom Hemopos and the Moana Jacksons who said that we had to deinstitutionalise prisons and we had to bring our people into the community."
Ngahiwi Tomoana says the plan carries on the vision of Māori leaders such as Pita Sharples and Moana Jackson, who said prisons needed to be deinstitutionalised. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
Te Huia said a huge focus was having people living in the city, not out near the prison, which was on a rural site near Bridge Pā, west of Hastings.
"You need to be where facilities are available to them, rather than hide them away in some rural isolated area where there's no support."
Ngāti Kahungunu deputy chair JB Heperi-Smith said it was all about preventing people from going into prison.
"If I was to hāngai to a proverb: 'te piko o te mahuri, tērā te tipu o te rākau'. So if we do that, what that proverb tells us - we need to provide a loving, caring environment that supports our whānau in terms of future opportunities and if we don't do that, we're going back into the same old same old."
However, Tomoana said the Hastings District Council was looking "askance" at the idea.
"I think they're a bit nervous about this being right in the middle of town, but if it's not right in the middle of town it won't work, you might as well keep them in prison. It has to be in the community from whence they came."
The land backs on to new homes and building sites, which developers are promoting as ''desirable'', ''premium'' and ''a safe community for families''.
Current Ngāti Kahungunu chair Bayden Barber hoped the iwi's ideas would change the council's mind.
"The council does have some reservations about proximity to some new developments over the road there but I think it's about relationships, it's about sitting down with the council. If the council was to hear the vision that Jean and Ngahiwi have articulated, I think it's quite easy to come on board."
Ngāti Kahungunu deputy chair JB Heperi-Smith, Ngāti Kahungunu chair Bayden Barber, Choices Kahungunu Health Services chief executive and midwife Jean Te Huia and K3 Kahungunu Property chief executive Aayden Clarke at the Fruitpackers Lodge site in Hastings. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
In a statement, Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said the land was zoned for residential housing.
"Any form of remand/custody accommodation is provided for on land that has been designated for this purpose in other parts of Hastings. People have made investment choices based on the land zoning that has been undertaken - any development occurring on land zoned residential should be residential."
Anna Lorck, the local MP for Tukituki, shared a similar view.
"The location is prime residential zoned land and given that Hawke's Bay and Hastings has a housing shortage, I've always stood by the belief that when we have residential land in Hastings we should build houses on it."
