6 ...brought to you by the Mazda CX-3. Tonight on Sunday, a baby born into homelessness. Well, the reality is, is that nine times out of 10, they're working really really hard to improve their life. Where will baby Shane live? < It's not very much, is it? No. Only bread and butter. They've just found it so hard to find a home to rent in the Auckland housing market. Kiwis desperate for somewhere to live. I want to stay and fight for my house. I'm gonna stay and fight. The only way is for the government to actually provide that housing. I don't think anyone who's got a major facial deformity, especially one that's grotesque, really has much chance in this world. She made it her mission to give him a better chance in life. Everyone's just a bit anxious at the moment. Tonight, Yahya goes home with a new face and a new future. (SNIFFS) So it wasn't... it wasn't easy. Hello. Love you. Captions by Anne Langford. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Kia ora. Ko Miriama Kamo ahau. So, what did you have for tea tonight? Ever tried just bread and butter? Well, that could be as good as it gets for thousands of impoverished Kiwi children, and it gets worse. Many of those children will be homeless. The scary thing is that while many appear to actually have jobs, they just don't earn enough to pay the rent or a mortgage. Now, these are families like any other who want security, food and a future for their children. Here's Ian Sinclair. For 2-year-old Benjamin, home is a garage, and the meal will be meagre. < What do you normally have for tea? Just bread and Weetabix for the child. < It's not very much, is it? No. Only bread and butter. Mother Rachel and father Nai are among NZ's 41,000 homeless people. KNOCK ON DOOR Hi, Rachel. Hello. Nice to see you. Hi, Nai, how are ya? Community worker Danielle Bergin knows Benjamin's world all too well. Hi, Benjamin. This converted garage is home to five adults and one child, and Rachel is expecting a new baby any day. So, Rachel, where are you sleeping in here? Where is your little bedroom? This is our little bedroom here. < Your little home for you and your family? < Yes. < So it's not ideal to bring little baby back here. Yeah. Not a lot of privacy for an expectant mother. It's hard to live in a curtain. Husband Nai works to support his family. We are making the baby formula. < And you're working full time? Yeah, full time. But on $16.50 an hour, sharing a garage is all they can afford. Have you been looking for a house? Yes, we've been looking for a house. We look at the Trade Me for some units that are cheaper, but they can't because they say it's only for one person or two person, they can't accept us all. < And so to get a place that can take all of you, how much would that cost? I think Nai's wages would all go into the rent. (LAUGHS) To Danielle Bergin, Nai is part of NZ's working poor. Very very hard in Auckland to find a house that you can afford, plus pay the water, plus pay power, plus keep your car on the road, plus try and get to work and feed your family. And it's so hard to do it when you're on such a small wage. And nobody knows that better than Danielle. Just because I can empathise with them. I'm formerly homeless myself. When she lost her own job, Danielle spent months living in a car. I ended up having a little baby. When you're homeless you clutch on any straws. I soon inherited a very small amount of money when my baby was 15 months old and it bought the cheapest shop possible in Panmure. 12 years on, her charity, Island Child Trust, is helping the homeless like little Benjamin and his family. < Are you worried? I'm just worried because I don't know, actually, how this newborn baby will raise up in this little garage. < Two children in a garage? Yes. Clearly, this is a lovely couple with a young family who are really really trying their hardest and who are trying their best to better themselves. They're good law-abiding citizens within NZ, and they've just found it so hard to find a home to rent in the Auckland housing market. Rachel's biggest fear is illness. It's really cold, but we have to put more blankets and turn on a heater, and for the child, actually, he's every time runny nose. The only bathroom is a walk outside to the house. For you, going to the bathroom in the dark, does that worry you? Actually, I wake up my husband and then we go together. The pressure is now on for Danielle to try to find something better for mother and baby. Good on you for finding me, darling. Yes. We're gonna really try hard to help you. Thank you. And it isn't as if there aren't plenty of empty homes in her own neighbourhood of Glen Innes. State houses empty all along here. Why? Why? Because it's part of the Tamaki regeneration programme. A redevelopment on a massive scale in east Auckland. This is the scene of the government's social housing reforms, but to Danielle, it's simply a land grab for private investors. Maybe we're moving the poor out and we're selling off the land and trying to get more private ownership of the land here. < So how long have these houses been empty for? Easily, around two and a half years. Two and a half years? Why? All just part of redevelopment and moving people out of communities. Well, you could look at them and say these houses here are being replaced by houses that are an awful lot better, aren't they? A positive step? Yes. Yes. Fair enough. Absolutely. Fair enough. But we could also say that these houses here are better than sleeping in your car. Desperate, though, they may be,... Oh, it's tough, man. ...Rachel and Nai would not qualify for a state house. You see, Rachel and Nai have an unusual situation. They have arrived on the Pacific ballot scheme. Every year NZ allows Pacific Islanders to enter a pacific-wide ballot for visas. A year ago, Rachel and Nai won a visa. They are not eligible for a state house unless they've been in NZ for two continuous years. They've been here about 12 months. People might look at Rachel and Nai and say, 'Well, it was their choice to come to NZ. 'Why, if it's so bad, don't they go back to Tonga instead of being, potentially, 'a burden on the state here?' I think Nai and Rachel are really hard-working, good people. I think they'll be a benefit to NZ, and if we want to go down that track, what are we offering the Pacific ballot scheme for, then? And as Danielle sees it, while Nai pays taxes from his full-time job, he is a contributor to this country. So, step one, move them out of the garage and across town to her place. I have got the smallest little chalet that is possible, that's available in Auckland city. Tiny chalets installed by Dani on her front yard for the homeless. Come round and I'll take this out. Don't you lift! It does perplex me that Glen Innes is surrounded by some really really wealthy areas ` Mission Bay, Remuera, Orakei. And no one, to date, has actually come up with a property to help the homeless down here in Glen Innes, other than little Danielle Bergin. True. It's not flash, but for Danielle's kindness, Rachael and Nai are overwhelmed. I think this is really great and I feel happy about this place. And what about you, Nai? What do you think? It's brilliant. Like, it's clean for the new baby. It's clean and it's private? > Yeah, and it's private. Now we have our own space. To understand the sacrifice Rachel and Nai are making is to know the life they left behind in Tonga. There Nai worked as a dental therapist. It's like the dentist ` fixing teeth, fixing gold inlay, everything. How important was it for you to come to NZ, Rachael? > To find a better future for our children. But for now, reality is a temporary shelter with the bathroom and kitchen still in a separate building. Finding a proper home in time for the baby's arrival looks almost impossible. Next up, baby Shane born into homelessness and the million dollar question ` are the poor making way for the rich? Three years on, developers have still only built 40 of the 78 state houses they promised, and there's still no timeframe for the completion of the rest. 41,000 homeless people, though. Would you agree we're in a crisis? 4 In Auckland, a baby is born into a world of uncertainty. Confronting mother Rachel and dad Nai is the question, where will they live? It's shameful, really. The gap is widening so much and the working poor is just so suffering. It's really really shameful. Advocate for the homeless, Danielle Bergin. When we started it, approximately 10 or 11 years ago, we could get people a state house easily within three days, three to five working days. Then it became about three weeks. We've just seen it get longer and longer and longer. Now you could be waiting up to a year. So from three days to a year? > Yeah. And the future for homeless, like baby Shane and his family, looks bleak. These ministerial briefing papers reveal that the waiting list for state houses has more than doubled since 2012. They also forecast that for Auckland alone, the shortage of state houses will get worse, not better. I don't think they are listening because otherwise we wouldn't be in the situation that we are. Major Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army says they're picking up the pieces of government's social housing reforms. Unfortunately, what's now happening is that we've not only got beneficiaries, we've got people who are sometimes on minimum incomes that are working. We had recently, for instance, a family in a car, and both the mother and father were working. And that's the sort of situation that's now developed in Auckland. And he says it's not as if we haven't solved this problem before. Take Glen Innes in the '60s where more than half the housing was built by the state. ARCHIVE: In three years, another 16,000 people will have moved in. But as even Major Campbell Roberts allows, by this century that dream had gone sour. We had appalling management of social housing by Housing NZ. They'd done it very badly. They weren't looking after their tenants properly and they weren't looking after their housing. And they had housing in the wrong place. The government response? Bring in the entrepreneurs. There's a whole dependence at this stage on the fact that the market is going to deliver more housing; that private enterprise developers are going to be able to provide social housing. Take the government's Glen Innes experiment. Hand 156 old state houses over to private developers. In return, they build only 78 new state houses. That's just half the original number. The remaining land will be given over to private homes. But here's the problem. Three years on, the developers have completed only 40 of the 78 houses they promised, and there's still no deadline for the completion of the rest. At the same time, twice the number of private homes have been sold, many for more than a million dollars. Not that the locals have taken it lying down. MAN: We shall... We shall.... We shall not be moved! The Tamaki Housing Action Group is fighting the plan to replace old state houses with new private homes, including this one with its sea views. WOMAN: So you're Sam Bowen of Barfoot & Thompson... Sam Bowen, the buyer of this home, is also the agent with a deal to market the private houses within this development. That's angered the protesters who questioned Mr Bowen on tape. So we approached Sam Bowen ourselves. It's been brought to our attention that you've taken one of the properties which did have a perfectly sound state house on it for your own purposes, for your own family. Is that correct? We wanted to ask him whether there was a conflict of interest. Mr Bowen refused to go on camera but he denied any conflict of interest, saying the transaction occurred before he was appointed as an agent for the development. Meanwhile, the construction of his home on the site of a state house where tenants of 30 years had been evicted, continues. The reality is, is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are just getting more and more marginalised. Is that really the NZ that our forefathers wanted? There is no doubt at all that social housing can't be provided by just relying on the market. If the market was going to provide social housing, it would have done so a long time before now. I want to stay and fight for my house. I'm going to stay and fight. Among state tenants, resistance continues. Julie and Andrew are fighting eviction. I'm appalled. They've watched their Glen Innes community disappear as state-house neighbours are moved out. I need a house. I need a house for my family. And this house, they say, has been their happy home for 17 years. My oldest is trying to finish her last year of Bachelor of PE. My son was doing carpentry but he's changed to doing construction work now. My youngest, yeah, she's clever, Rosalina. She loves her sports. To them, a safe, secure home was vital to their kids' success. For this, Andrew, a storeman, and school office worker Julie, pay a market rent of $485 a week. We just want them to do better than we did, just like our parents wanted us to do better than they did. Then they got the word. The state now wants them to move. The problem is... ...that we earn too much and that we needed to find a private place; that the place should be for families that really need it, the low-income families. Their question ` what about those other state houses standing empty for years? The empty houses, they look pretty good to me. Why are they not putting families in those houses? Families like Rachel and Nai, back from hospital with baby Shane and still homeless in Danielle Bergin's shelter. They're just really really nice people. They're well-dressed, they're well-spoken. The little boy is really well looked after. There's one happy note, because of the baby, WINZ has declared them eligible for a 'working for families' support, bringing an extra $400 a week. But their low income has already put them in debt and Auckland rentals are steep. My little trust that I run, I can help in a certain area with certain actions, but this is big stuff. You know, government needs to start sitting up and actually realising, 'What can we do to really help these people?' Then just two days ago, a breakthrough. The nightmare turned to dream. This is the 2016 version of a state house, publicly funded, two storeyed, two bedrooms. The best thing of having this house is just for the... our children. It's a better place to live, not like when we live in the garage. For Danielle, it's a small victory, but there's no denying the plight of thousands of other homeless Kiwis. I just really wish I could get the other 41,000 homeless people in NZ on television to get such fantastic results. So, it's great to see Rachel and Nai have finally got a state house of their own, and we'd like to thank them for sharing their struggle with us. It's not easy for proud people. But by telling their story, they are bravely shining a light on the plight of 41,000 other homeless NZers. It's huge. So Ian Sinclair asked Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, 'What do you do with desperate cases 'like Rachel and Nai?' There's no reason why those people should be in a garage. A family with a young child should be in decent housing, and we should be able to meet that need. But with 4500 people in the queue, it's pretty hard, isn't it? And 41,000 homeless people. Where are you going to find all the houses for these little boys and others? > Well, because there's-there's new houses being produced. The government's got access to more houses. It's finding more emergency places. This is an ongoing process where, as I said, in Auckland, 60 or 70 people are being placed each week. So most people, when they turn up, if they're particularly in a situation with a newborn child in a garage, then they're likely to be ahead of others in the queue. 41,000 homeless people, though. Would you agree we're in a crisis? We've got a shortage of houses. Call it what you like. We've got a shortage of houses. Can we just focus down on Glen Innes, because that's the area we've been looking at? And it's been pointed out to us, block after block of empty state houses boarded up while some of them have been, you know, empty for a couple of years. There's a large number of houses taken out because of P contamination. You can't just put tenants into P-contaminated houses, and that's been... there's been an explosion of that in the last couple of years. Also in Tamaki, there's extensive redevelopment. An area with 2800 houses is going to go to 7000 or 8000 houses over the next 10 years. And that involves relocating tenants of some of those houses. But I can assure you there won't be large numbers of appropriate, suitable, usable social houses boarded up. Everything that can be used is being used. Nevertheless, though, the promise of the local developers there was that they would deliver 78 houses. So far they've only built 40. The point made by the Salvation Army is that this is because you're letting the market drive the solution. > The only answer, in their opinion, is that low-income housing has to be paid for by the government. Well, it's all being, one way or another, being paid for by the government. I mean, we agree with the Salvation Army that there's a need for more houses, and certainly low- and middle-income families need to see more houses built faster. That's, in the long run, that's the only way to reduce the housing pressure that's on them. And are you going to continue to use private enterprise to build these state houses? Yes, we are, because they're pretty good at it. But if your plan is working so well, why has the number of people on the waiting list for state houses doubled since 2012? Well, first I wouldn't exactly agree with those figures. I'm going by figures here, which we have... The pressure... The pressure here is the same one everyone else is dealing with, and that is the Auckland market has continued to have strongly increasing house prices. That's a product of 20 years of poor planning. There simply hasn't been enough land available to allow the houses to be built when demand at the moment is so strong. And the government has to deal with those pressures as well as everybody else. OK. Well, e whai ake nei. After the break, the next chapter ` a determined woman, a team of brilliant surgeons and the future for the gorgeous, wee boy who was born without a face. We all love it. When you see the success, the feedback is fantastic. BABY COOS Today is the final surgical instalment for this extraordinary little boy. Hoki mai ano. We take it for granted ` our face. But Yahya of Morocco was born without one. We followed his story, meeting the determined woman who fought for him to have a chance at a normal life and the team of brilliant Aussie doctors who set about doing what seemed the impossible. Yahya is now ready to go home, and at 5 years old, he surprised everyone with some farewell words ` his first. Here's Dr Andrew Rochford with our final chapter. I am incredibly happy that I will be taking Yahya home to his family. After almost two years in Australia, Yahya El Jabaly is finally going home. There's a lot of mixed emotions for all of us. I'm feeling terribly sad because I know I'm going to say goodbye to him very soon. The little boy from Morocco doesn't need a swag of Aussie keepsakes for his homecoming. He's wearing a permanent souvenir ` a brand new face. This is Yahya today. This is what he looked like before surgery. I don't think anyone who's got a major facial deformity, especially one that is grotesque, really has much chance in this world. When Yahya was born, whole sections of his face and skull had failed to fuse, leaving him without a nose, mouth and eyes. Unable to see, unable to speak; most babies would not have survived. The risk of getting infection and meningitis, which would have been fatal, was particularly high, so to survive for so long without that happening was very lucky. The flight home for Yahya is a small, final step in an incredible journey for a brave, little boy. When we first met Yahya, his appearance was so confronting, his mum and dad would not take him out unless he was covered up. His only friend was Heba, a little girl next door who didn't seem to care that he was different. Melbourne-based Moroccan Fatima Baraka found a post about Yahya on Facebook and made it her mission to give him a chance at a better life. It was a big phone number in red. It was quite obvious that it was a cry for help of some sort. And I found myself reaching for the phone and dialling the number. Fatima persuaded renowned plastic reconstructive surgeon Tony Holmes at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne to give Yahya a face and a future. The risks we could understand. The benefits we could understand, and the benefits far outweighed the risks. The most painstaking work involved the neurosurgeon separating Yahya's brain from his skull. So this is the delicate part of the operation ` getting the brain separate from all of this cleft and sealed up. So everyone's sort of a bit anxious at the moment. The high-risk surgery realigned deformed facial bones and built Yahya a new nose and mouth. The operation was scheduled to take eight hours. It took 18. The result was stunning. Oh! > We all love it. When you see the success, the feedback is fantastic. (COOS) You start with something, you build it and you come to a finished product. Even though the big operation was a success, there was still work to do before Yahya could go home. So eight months after the first surgery, he returned to the Royal Children's Hospital. Today is the final surgical instalment for this extraordinary little boy. A few tweaks to the nose, final fixes to the face and he'll be ready to head back to Morocco. MACHINE BEEPS The second surgery was really to make a-a-a better nose. We actually took some rib and made a sort of cantilevered-type strut that was going to support his new nose. He's an absolute trooper. He just, um, keeps amazing me, that little boy. Within a couple of days, he was singing and, you know, happy and being the gorgeous little Yahya that he is. Yeah. No, he sailed through it again. # Before too long, the one that you're loving will wish that he'd never met you. # The list of milestones that Yahya should never have reached is extensive, including his fifth birthday, which is today. I could spend a very long time running through all his remarkable achievements, but I think I'm just going to go and enjoy the party. Hello, buddy. Happy birthday. Today's celebration is also a chance to say goodbye to all the extraordinary people who have helped Yahya along the way. But it's with a great deal of joy that I (SNIFFS) share his fifth birthday today with all of you, and, um, it is with great joy that I will be taking him home looking the way he is now. He's made it to 5 and I hope he makes it to 105. He's walking a lot better than he was. There's one final tick of approval that Yahya needs to board that plane to Morocco. Hi, guys. How are you? Good to see you. Well, I'm very happy with him. I've got a few little, small problems that I'd like to iron out eventually in that I'd like to get a bit of a better nose, but he's growing like a weed, um, and he doesn't need any more surgery at the current time. I would think that he's got a normal life expectancy. There's no other reason to expect otherwise. I hope you have a lovely trip. So with the green light from the doc, Yahya is cleared to fly home. And as he's leaving, something extraordinary happens. Bye ya. Say bye-bye. Thank you. When he said 'thank you', did you expect that? That was pretty fantastic. Yeah. It's very exciting whenever you have a patient who is successful and you see them happy, it really is a big buzz. Well next up, Yahya's homecoming. # If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it. # If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. # The Yahya that I'm bringing back is a totally different kid. I love you. 5 The Yahya that I met was a very quiet little boy. He didn't seem to have much confidence and he couldn't do a lot of the basic things that most kids did. So the Yahya that I'm bringing back is a totally different kid. # If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. # If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it. # If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. # Yay! (LAUGHS) His tiny village in the north of Africa remains unchanged. DONKEY BRAYS But the little boy who left here is nothing like the one who has returned. Ee, ee, ee. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing his family's reaction because I am taking a different kid back home. You're here. We're nearly home. Go and see your daddy and your little friend Heba. You remember Heba? Oh, Heba! (LAUGHS) Heba can't wait to see him. Hello, Heba. Mwah. Oh, Heba! (SPEAKS ARABIC) I know that he recognised a lot of the voices and was quite happy to be hearing them again, especially his little friend Heba's voice. He was really happy to hear Heba. Heba's turning 6 soon and she hasn't forgotten her little friend. He will get out and socialise, and socialising and communicating is what makes a human being. And I think he now has the ability to do that. So it's made a big difference. Bye-bye, Yahya. And now I'm going to go. Suddenly it hit me that, you know, I was actually saying goodbye to them, and, um, I know I'll see them again but it just won't be the same without them. I love you. I love you. Saying goodbye to loved ones and saying goodbye to family. (SNIFFS) So it wasn't... It wasn't easy. I love you. OK. Bye, little guy. (SNIFFS) Oh. What a journey. Well, tata tonu tatou te mutu o te wiki o te Reo Maori, engari korero Maori tonu ia ra, ia ra. Na tatou, ma tatou, Pakeha, Maori, tatou katoa. Maori Language Week is nearly over but don't stop speaking. Te Reo Maori belongs to all NZers. Own it. And that is our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter Sunday TVNZ.