Māori students couch surfing or living in crowded homes with no place to study are among tertiary students the Grace Foundation is helping at Te Whare Akoranga.
It’s a housing initiative providing somewhere to live for students struggling with accommodation costs, homelessness or living in an environment that does not support their educational journey.
“It wasn’t until we actually opened the doors to the whare that I realised [how] many of our Māori students are really struggling,” says Morgan Davis, who has worked with the Grace Foundation for the past two years.
Te Whare Akoranga is available to university students aged 18-24. The two houses are based in Tāmaki Makaurau - one for wāhine which houses six people, and another for tāne with the capacity for 17 tenants.
Harriet Farrelly has come through Grace Foundation programmes and is now a proud kaimahi at the establishment. She says it provided her with purpose and opportunity.
“[Grace] has given me a life that I truly deserve. It has given me healing education and employment - I’ve restored my whanau.”
Along with Davis, Farrelly visits the Te Whare Akoranga every day to assist and supervise the rangatahi.
“[The] majority of our tāne here and wāhine, they have been couch surfing, or come from over-crowded homes; [there is] no space for them to study or [they’re] from out of the Auckland area,” Farrelly says.
“[They’ve] been in student halls, accumulated a lot of debt on top of debt and yeah, they’ve found their way to us, thank God.”
The accommodation was established in 2023 and offers subsidised board for struggling students.
Their rooms are equipped with beds and desks. They also have access to cooking facilities, washing machines and study areas with printers to assist with their assignments.
While the wāhine house is at capacity, Davis says the tāne house still have room for more tenants.
“We’re just trying to get people to know there is a whare like this out there for our students who are struggling.”
This cause is dear to Farrelly’s heart, who struggled to support herself as a young student in Otara.
“I went to MIT - I studied business there. And probably because of the environment that I was living in at the time - the lifestyle I was born into - it just wasn’t conducive and I never completed my studies.”
“The core of [this initiative] is to support our rangatahi, to support their studies, to complete their studies.”
Farrelly says this service is available to students who are serious about their tertiary studies.
“[It’s for] those who are finding it hard to study and stay concentrated on their studies, [whānau] out there on the lower margin of our country.”
“There are [places] like this that are available, that’s genuinely just here to help, to give aroha and just give awhi. [We] hope this is still there when someone comes knocking on our doors.”
The foundation hope to expand these services in the future.
“Where there’s a need we will help. We’d hope to bring it on.”
For more information, see the Grace Foundation’s Facebook page.