Access to justice through collaborative action
Tolaga Bay resident Rick Crawford was restoring his family whare (house), when it was irreparably damaged by a failed re-piling. Rick spent more than two years in an increasingly desperate situation which separated his whānau (family) and forced him to live in his garage. A chance meeting with EHF Fellows Janine Edge (Cohort 7) and Sasha Lockley (Cohort 6) when they were visiting Tolaga Bay at the invitation of Lily Stender (Cohort 6) last year, gave him the inspiration and mana (strength) to finally see a path back home.
“I got permission to re-pile my house, and what happened is that the renovation company was just working on jacks alone. They had no other supports under the house and, because it was sandy soil, the jacks gave way,” Rick says. “Even before it fell, you could tell it hadn’t been done properly.”
As Lily describes it, Rick was one of many Māori in the area who had left his home to earn a better living in the city and abroad. He eventually returned to use his savings to restore the whānau home. Losing that home created a helpless situation for Rick and his mother who initially, were both made homeless. Support from the Kaumātua Programme, Tūranga Health quickly found a place for his mother to rent in Gisborne, however this still resulted in a great sense of shame, pain and embarrassment.
He spent the next year trying to pursue the renovation company for compensation but, finding that the damage to his uninhabitable whare exceeded the company’s insurance limit, he could find no clear path to resolve the issue. As a fellow member of the small Tolaga Bay community, Lily was aware of his plight and jumped in early to help. “Rick and his sister were working on this project together to restore the home for their family, for their mum. When the house initially fell down, I helped Rick go and see a lawyer in Gisborne, but the feedback he got was that it could cost his whole life’s savings to take the case to court, and there was no guarantee that he’d win. In effect, all of the money - if there was any - could’ve ended up in the hands of the lawyers, with no home for Rick’s family at the end of it. For about a year, Rick and his sister tried to fight the battle themselves. It became a huge burden, really heavy on their shoulders.”
Things began to change for Rick when Lily invited a group of Fellows to join her in Tolaga Bay for a brainstorm about the environmental, social and economic issues of the region. “We hosted them on our marae (sacred, communal space) and Rick was one of the ones that came to help host our visitors. After the marae weekend, I invited everyone back to Tolaga Bay Inn to get to know each other a little better. Sasha and Janine were both there and we started to discuss Rick’s struggles. They visited his property the following morning before their flight. That’s when the wheels really started moving.”
With her background as a corporate finance lawyer and mediator, Janine took on the role of project manager and legal liaison on the Crawfords’ behalf. “The whole thing had really ground to a halt. Rick fought as hard as he could with the resources he had, but he had eventually given up. When we met him, he’d already spent two years living in his garage and his Mum had been forced to move up to a flat in Gisborne. He needed help to get his home back,” she says.
Rick was amazed by the speed with which things started to change for him and his whānau after that first, serendipitous meeting. “It was amazing the way they got things happening. They must’ve gotten off the plane in Auckland and been on the phone with people straight away. Janine made me feel like I was going somewhere, for a change.”
What followed was nine months of collaborative problem-solving by a number of Fellows. “For EHF Fellows to be able to assist with larger-scale solutions to the challenges in the Tolaga Bay area, we wanted to build connection and trust with the community,” Janine says. “Connecting with Rick and his whānau on a personal level, listening, understanding what was important and offering solutions to recover their home was an important first step.”
Sasha provided some early support by lending her forensic accounting expertise to the preparation of Rick’s legal briefs, and then Steven Moe (Cohort 7) and his firm Parry Field came on board as Rick’s legal team, part-funded by about a dozen Fellows through the Open Collective crowdfunding platform, led by Alanna Irving (Cohort 5). The result of these collaborative efforts has been to provide the Crawfords with justice that they otherwise would not have been able to access. Janine notes that Steven Moe’s firm had particular expertise in disputes involving damaged buildings, and this resulted in the best possible negotiated settlement without the need for court proceedings.
“In all fairness, Community Law Centres and Citizens’ Advice Bureau are not equipped to handle an issue with this level of financial value and complexity,” Janine says, “and legal aid is often not available in these kinds of circumstances. It’s a gap in the system which I also experienced in the UK. Unfortunately, this gap left Rick homeless.”
“At the end of the day,” Rick says, “they took my house. Then they hid behind the law and made it out of reach for someone like me to fight them. It doesn’t matter if you’re Pākehā or Māori; if you’re on that lower side of society, you can’t fight them. You can’t afford to.” Lily agrees. “When our people need to go to court, even if they’re in the wrong, they don’t have any representation because they can’t afford it. They get a student duty solicitor if they’re lucky. In many cases their sentences or fines are much higher or they’re locked up because they can’t afford good legal representation.”
“The process of instructing lawyers so they can work efficiently can be a daunting task, in itself.” Janine says. “It requires a certain level of knowhow. In Rick’s case, we also helped him and his whānau focus on a range of possible solutions. If they weren’t ever going to get the full value of his previous house, what were some of the other ways that we could enable him to achieve the end of a new home? This is where Kim Aitken, [Cohort 7] and Tina Jennen, [Cohort 8] come in.”
Kim, Founder of Aitken Frame Homes Canada & Truss House NZ™, is working to create a housing solution to enable Rick and his family to rebuild and restore truth, hope and home. Developed initially in Canada, Aitken Frame Homes’ truss house system offers housing which is energy-efficient, stronger and more affordable for homeowners. Collaborators Tina and Kim have combined their experience to form NZ-based consultancy, Be The Change Delta, using the sustainable truss housing system and process innovations to implement a number of solutions designed to help address the New Zealand housing crisis.
With Rick’s settlement, and a small additional mortgage, he’s hopeful to be in his new home by Christmas. “I’m waiting for the land to get cleared to see exactly what I can fit on it,” he says. “I’ve been working with the community to take the old house to bits slowly, and once that’s done, I’ll reach out to Kim again. She reckons, once they get building, it’ll go up in no time.”
Though there is still a lot of hard mahi (work) ahead to get Rick into his new whare, for the first time in a long while he is excited about the future and, in particular, moving his 86-year-old Mum back home. “I don’t know where I’d be without the Fellows. I probably would’ve just built another double garage on my section and be sleeping there because that’s all I would’ve had enough money to do. In the end, it’s worked out pretty cool.”
Keep an eye on ehf.org for the next chapter in Rick’s story and for a video about Rick’s story, view here. If you or an organisation you know can assist Rick with the interior of his new whare, please contact Lily Stender at tolagabayinn@gmail.com.