default-output-block.skip-main
National | Homeless

Ricky Houghton wins Local Hero of the Year

Chairman of He Korowai Trust, Ricky Houghton, has won the Local Hero of the Year award at the 2018 New Zealander of the Year Awards.

Hougton, of Te Paatu, Ngāti Kahu and Ngāti Whātua, has led the Trust in Kaitaia since its inception in the early 2000s. Over the past 10 years, he’s saved more than 550 homes from mortgage sales in the Far North and kept 6400 vulnerable New Zealanders housed.

The awards ceremony was held in Auckland last night and Houghton used his speech as an opportunity to thank those who’ve helped him.

“I accept it for all the staff, the trustees of He Korowai Trust. Thank you to the team up home.  Thank you for everything you do.”

Houghton has also overseen services in justice and whānau development for more than 800 families and created business enterprises worth $10mil using natural resources while taking no personal profit.

Now he is leading a new project, supported by Foundation North, to engage local youth in trade training and entrepreneurship development skills, through renovating through building homes for those in need.

“I want to particularly acknowledge the chairperson and trustees of Foundation North who have supported us – over two and a half million dollars – to go into the next tee of development to help move our young people from state dependence to independence.”

Houghton almost forgot to thank his wife and daughter during the speech but remembered just before walking off stage.

“One more thing. My wife said to me, ‘Don’t forget me aye?’ he said to the audience. “My darling wife and my daughter you thought I’d forgotten aye.”

Equal pay champion Kristine Bartlett won the ultimate New Zealander of the Year award and was presented the kaitaka huaki cloak, Pouhine, by Dr Lance O'Sullivan on behalf of last year's winner, Taika Waititi.

Bartlett changed the lives of thousands of New Zealand women and low-paid workers by successfully securing landmark equal pay legislation for caregivers in the aged-care sector.