Hinemoa Apetera's a good sort - the type you know has a spare pair of steel cap gumboots she'll happily lend.
The 64-year-old's looking forward to her Supergold card next year, and she'll be able to access her KiwiSaver. Her modest dream? To be able to buy something to put on land at Rewarewa D.
It's collectively owned Māori land right in Whāngarei. The 64 hectares are gorse forest and mānuka, hence the need for steel caps.
She's already living here - in a rented cabin with her kurī (dog), Matau.
"I was in a fourteen-year rental and got notice; the landlady was crying because she was feeling sorry for me, but I'd already decided I was coming here," Apetera said.
There are no services at Rewarewa D, and the chairwoman of the block, Nikki Wakefield, says it's controversial that Apetera is on site, because the Māori Land Court has to rubberstamp Māori owners living on their own land.
It's symptomatic of the housing shortage in Northland. Six hundred are on the social housing register in Whangārei, and the region has a housing stock that the Government admits is the worst in the country.
"It's been a few generations since we've had whānau living on the land," Wakefield said.
"There's huge need...where people are showing up, they're showing up with a digger and cabin to plonk themselves here, and we're having to have a conversation as a whānau."
Associate Housing Minister Peeni Henare announced this week the Government is partnering with a collective of Northland trusts, iwi and hapū Te Pouahi o Te Taitokerau.
They'll get $55 million - that'll get 80-100 affordable homes and up to 110 infrastructure sites by 2025.
"We know we cannot tackle this housing crisis alone. The key to success lies in partnership," Henare said.
Across town in Otangarei, Martin Kaipo, whose trust is likely to be a partner, has a vision for his suburb.
"I look at Otangarei as being the Ponsonby of Whangārei purely because of where it's situated," Kaipo said.
It's three minutes from the CBD, and Kainga Ora is a significant landlord here. The sections are large, and the roads are wide. The social deprivation index score is 10, the lowest rating.
The day 1News was there, women were out walking, young men were driving and middle-aged Māori and Pākeha who were home approached for chats. They were friendly and interested in housing developments.
It's the kind of suburb where news crews only go when something bad happens. And there's only one bit of aggression from a young man yelling obscenities at our team from across the road, but during Covid, that behaviour's par for the course on many jobs these days.
Kaipo estimates the suburb could support 300 new homes.
"We're hoping to stage the housing development purely because we want whānau to be able to purchase....we don't want this community just to be social housing. We want the opportunity for the whānau to come and say, 'I want to live here... there's a kura, everything's close by, so I want my family to grow up here,'" he said.
Twenty years ago, Kaipo was a Mangu Kaha Black Power gang president.
Now he runs one of the city's most prominent social service agencies.
What drives him is linked to his past - a need to make amends to a place that he loves deeply. When he talks about housing, he is actually talking about rebuilding the community.
"We bought that scene into this community. Young gang members, wanting to make a reputation and statement. It was about the drugs, sex and rock and roll," he said.
"Many of those fullas are still stuck in that time warp living here."
So many of those former colleagues only want the best for their children and are looking at Māori providers to help, he explained.
How far will the dollar stretch here?
Kaipo says it's a start and will help providers and iwi organisations strategise.
Back at Rewarewa D, Wakefield and Apetera are poring over plans for a 52-home kainga (settlement) with a marae.
There's both uncertainty and hope here.
Getting the kainga built has been on the cards since 2018, but there is red tape galore, and progress hinges on funding applications which often hold up the process.
During those time lags, prices change.
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