WARNING: This episode contains references to domestic violence and topics around drug and substance abuse.

In this episode, we meet Mahera Maihi, founder and CEO of Mā Te Huruhuru, the first kaupapa Māori youth transitional housing provider in Aotearoa, and the Kiwibank Local Hero of the Year 2026.

Mahera grew up in Ōtara, South Auckland, the child of two people caught in a collision of worlds — her mother from a long line of educated people, experts in carving, weaving, and traditional Māori knowledge; her father the president of a Stormtroopers gang chapter, shaped by state care, by a violent father who came home broken from the Korean War, by a life that offered him few exits and no map.

What her father gave her, for all the chaos he brought, was this: education is the key to freedom. Go get educated and when you do, come back for your siblings. She did exactly that. In this episode,

Mahera talks about the night a young woman arrived at her door with blood on her face and nowhere to go, and what happened next. She talks about two years of bureaucratic combat to become a housing provider — a circular trap where each ministry required what only the other could give — and what it took to break the deadlock.

She talks about zero property damage, zero police callouts, and not one claim on the Supported Housing fund. And she talks about the deepest aspiration: to be the bridge that brings young people home. Not just to stable housing in South Auckland. Home.

We'd like to thank Mahera for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.

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The CHA Hub Podcast is sponsored by our Founding Partner, Westpac New Zealand.