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Regional | Housing

Nikau Housing Ltd providing Jobs for Huntly locals

Recently Te Kāea brought you the story about how Waikato whānau company - Nikau Housing Ltd, brought 16 state homes in Huntly, for their marae beneficiaries of Matahuru.

Now, Nikau Housing Ltd has created employment opportunities for the Huntly community, through their Housing Maintenance Plan.

Labourer Clayton Osbourne has been unemployed for many weeks.  But a job opportunity came through Nikau Housing Ltd.

Osborne said, “Three weeks ago I was a stay-at-home dad, just looking after my babies, 'til this opportunity came up, and yep I jumped at the chance.”

Several months ago Nikau Housing Ltd purchased 16 state homes in Huntly, through the RFR clause under the Waikato Tainui Raupatu Settlement, with a plan to renovate some of the homes.

Nikau Housing Ltd Advisor, Tawera Nikau said, “What we've done with the maintenance contract on some of our housing stuff, was employing and training our own people, the TED model which is train, employ, develop.”

Nikau says that they focused on providing jobs for the unemployed Labourers in Huntly, who had some renovation skills.

Operations Manager Troy Kingi said, “We tried to look for whānau that had previous skills in this type of mahi.”

Tawera Nikau says that it's really exciting for the guys because they get the opportunity to get into houses, start from scratch and come up with an ace product.

Nikau Housing LTD also plans to increase the number of job opportunites for locals.

According to  Kingi, they only have a gang of four, so hopefully we can build to a gang of maybe twenty in two to three years, and then they could be a foreman as well for their own group.

Osborne says, “Hopefully gain the right tickets, that would provide the opportunities for me to get those bigger jobs, that would definitely benefit my family.”