July 2013 - WHT and Mahora House Merger
Wellington Housing Trust (WHT) and Mahora House Inc (MHI) have worked together for many years and in early 2012 the two organisations began exploring how they could work more closely.
The funding of MHI services by CCDHB finished on 30th June and under the new CCDHB Te Ara Pai framework there is no more ongoing funding available for MHI although the DHB have provided some transitional funding to facilitate the change in service delivery.
Following this WHT and MHI reviewed their partnership and decided the next step for the two organisations is to merge to form a single entity. Earlier this year, both WHT and MHI boards made the decision to merge fully. Both organisations recognise that joining together would enable us to further improve and increase the quality and range of services we currently provide as well as release efficiencies. Joining expertise and resources to work together will also create significant benefits for our combined organisation and for those people who need our services.
The last few months have seen MHI and WHT staff and records sharing the same office space and we are now sharing office functions.
The outcomes of the merger are to:
- Reduce duplication of governance, management and operational resources and overhead costs in the long term
- Increase the reserves and asset base and offer more leverage for financing new schemes
- Provide a fresh focus for the partners and enable us to reposition ourselves in the market
In order to create the merged organisation MHI will be merged into the Dwell Housing Trust (Dwell) entity from 1 July 2013. Dwell was set up last year to enable the WHT to expand its work to areas outside of Wellington City. After the MHI-Dwell merger has been successfully completed, WHT will also merge into Dwell at some time.
Dwell will be in a far stronger position than either of its parent organisations to grow to meet some of the increasing housing need in our region.
The merger is a huge milestone in both organisations' history and comes with many varied emotions. We are however excited by the change as we shape our future together. In April both boards agreed that the vision for Dwell will be "Affordable quality homes where people flourish". The Dwell values are much the same as those currently held by WHT and MHI – Integrity, Community, Empowering Others, Sustainability and Innovation. We will continue to focus on better services, more homes and strong advocacy.
A consequence of the change in service delivery for MHI is Karen (Mags) Maguire finishing working for Mahora on 5th July. It is with much sadness and a heavy heart that we say thanks to Mags and acknowledge the huge amount of work she has achieved. All of us who know Mags know about her enormous talent for working with people with a mental illness and her whatever it takes approach. We hope Mags will continue to have a role and will not be lost to the sector.
WHT will be contacting all those agencies who work with Mahora House and advising them of the changes in service delivery.
The Trust would like to thank MinterEllison for its help and support during the merger.