| 3 Te Toi Mahana REGIONAL T TVirginia Wright The evolving face of public housing The Te Toi Mahana FM team was recognised as a finalist in this year’s FMANZ Awards (Facilities Managers Association New Zealand). Over the last few decades, the shape of public or social housing around New Zealand has changed with successive governments and shifting priorities. In the early 2000s Wellington City Council was New Zealand’s second-largest public landlord providing rental homes below market rates for older adults, families, and people with disabilities. In 2023 that public-housing portfolio became the responsibility of Te Toi Mahana, a for-purpose charitable trust established on the belief that everyone deserves somewhere to call home, and that housing is the foundation for personal and community wellbeing. Today Te Toi Mahana is one of the largest Community Housing Providers (CHPs) in Aotearoa, providing safe, warm and dry homes for almost 3,000 people across the Wellington region. They work in partnership with Wellington City Council and their mana whenua partners, Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, Te Āti Awa ki Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui, and Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, as well as their tenants and the wider community. Their goal is to add hundreds of new affordable homes to the portfolio they manage over the next 10 years and, in the meantime, the team in charge of managing and maintaining the existing portfolio is taking the mandate of driving better outcomes for tenants and the Wellington community very seriously. Now, the organisation’s Facilities Management (FM) team of seven is working to more pro-actively address tenants’ maintenance needs. From Miramar through to Tawa the buildings span decades and range from standalone, three-bedroom houses, through to apartment complexes covering five blocks with over 100 people living there. Together the FM Team is realigning what has historically been a largely reactive approach. “While we will still maintain the actual physical property through the provision of scheduled and unscheduled works such as fixing a leaky tap or completing annual building washes, the planning to replace end-of-life assets will be directed by data. “This is where using asset data to front-foot maintenance and having our input as buildings are refurbished or built new is hugely beneficial to the portfolio and its tenants,” says Craig Parker, Te Toi Mahana Manager of Assets and Facilities. Having the experienced FM team pro-actively involved in the planned upgrade of 825 of the older properties in the Council’s portfolio, for example, brings short and long term efficiencies to the process. Simple things like “This is where using asset data to front-foot maintenance and having our input as buildings are refurbished or built new is hugely beneficial to the portfolio and its tenants.” ensuring fittings are robust enough to support tenant use, from door handles to toilet roll holders, makes a big difference when you look at the volume of properties. Analysing the asset data across the portfolio to inform decisions is the challenge. For example, managing hot water cylinders across almost 2000 homes requires a different approach to managing one in your own home. So does managing smoke detectors, with a limited lifespan, across the whole portfolio, that need to be replaced before their life expires. It’s a hugely complex, multi-layered web of logistics that must pro-actively manage every home’s risk profile efficiently and in a timely manner. “It’s a large operation which you don’t want to be managing all in one year, and we want to ensure that we’re looking after the needs of the community at the same time,” says Craig. That people-first, community-led approach is one of the reasons the Te Toi Mahana FM team was recognised as a finalist in this year’s FMANZ Awards (Facilities Managers Association New Zealand). Whether it’s supporting tikanga Māori-led Mara kai community gardens to enhance community wellbeing or managing trade tasks they uphold a culture of service, grounded in empathy for the people who call their homes their own. Te Toi Mahana are working to bring another 500 new homes to Wellington’s social housing network over the next 10 years — each carefully designed and equipped to ensure they’ll go the distance while offering a safe, comfortable and affordable home to someone in need.
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