Pritchard, a long-term transitional housing tenant, did not take her temporary house for granted. But speaking to Marae in an interview held before she received the good news, she said she was unable to settle not knowing if she was going to receive a call up in a week or another six months.<\/p>\n
She adapted by seeing it as \u201chome for now\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think sometimes it is my home, but to me, I\u2019m really lucky that I have ended up here compared to some people who don\u2019t. Yeah, because housing here is, wow. Like, the rent\u2019s just out the gate. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I couldn\u2019t afford to have a one bedroom, private, because they\u2019re like about $500 a week. So\u2026 that would be all my pension a fortnight.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Rena](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/rena-pritchard-SEZIXADL5RAABHW6G3NFP2VNLE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Rena Pritchard. (Source: Marae)<\/p>\n
She became emotional when asked what her ultimate dream was: \u201cTo be in a forever home. Because I\u2019m not getting any younger either and I think my life sort of has been upside down, a lot. So, I suppose I\u2019m sort of lucky to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
From one week to three-plus years in transitional housing<\/p>\n
T\u016branganui a Kiwa Housing Ltd is one of Gisborne\u2019s key housing providers, managing 38 properties across the city including a former motel that was purchased and converted into housing.<\/p>\n
Stacey Maniapoto, transitional housing manager, said clients were supported to live independently and set goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look after all sorts. There\u2019s no \u2018perfect\u2019 type of wh\u0101nau that we take in our space. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe take all sorts from all walks of life, all different backgrounds. A lot we get are wh\u0101nau trying to get back on their feet, healing, even recovering from addictions trying to move forward. We also have some working wh\u0101nau who also need that hand up as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it takes time to find suitable accommodation for wh\u0101nau because of the different circumstances with each case. The timeframe can stretch between a week to three years, she said, and for some like Pritchard, even longer.<\/p>\n
![\"Stacey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/stacey-maniapoto-YQP5M35PKVFBNFFYKVDQBS6Y3I.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Stacey Maniapoto of T\u016baranganui a Kiwa Housing Ltd. (Source: Marae)<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the timeframe, unfortunately. Not all of them have been here that long, but yeah, there\u2019s still a couple, there\u2019s still a few in our space that have been here too long. However, we can\u2019t move them on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel a little bit forgotten,\u201d said Pritchard, \u201cbecause you\u2019ve got a roof over your head now, like, there\u2019s no urgency to get into a forever home. But at my age it\u2019s like, I would like to be settled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pritchard finally received the long-awaited call from K\u0101inga Ora following this interview.<\/p>\n
Housing prices out of reach?<\/p>\n
While New Zealand\u2019s housing market remained steady in June, Gisborne recorded the sharpest year-on-year increase in unsold inventory, according to a recent report by REINZ. The median house price is around $600,000.<\/p>\n
As of Monday, there were 70 properties up for rent in Gisborne on TradeMe. It\u2019s never been that big before, said Maniapoto \u2013 you would have been lucky to see five to ten.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because of the price of homes these days. So, there\u2019s a lot of homes out there to rent but no one can afford to rent them.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, K\u0101inga Ora announced plans to build more than 100 additional homes in Gisborne, and in May, it welcomed new tenants into eight new homes. There are currently 15 housing projects listed on the website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gisborne woman Rena Pritchard spent three-and-a-half years waiting for social housing to become available, and now her dream…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4432,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-546782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-maori-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}