Past year sees huge increase in number of applicants for social housing

Thursday, 14 November 2019

'If the National-led Governments had delivered public housing places at the rate this Government is ramping up delivery there wouldn't be this waiting list of nearly 14,000 applications,' says Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi.

The number of applicants waiting for social housing has ballooned with some areas having twice the number of applicants they did a year ago.

The Ministry of Social Development's Housing Register, which shows the number of applicants who have been assessed as eligible and ready to move, but are not currently in public housing, reached 13,966 in September.

'The only people gaining are motel owners and this is at the expense of families who are desperate for accommodation,' says Tukituki MP Lawrence Yule..

Of those 6672 are single adults. The rest are applying for two or more adults or adults and children.

That is 4430 or 46.5 per cent more than the 9536 applicants on the list in September last year.

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Of the 13,966 applicants, 12,036 were 'Priority A', meaning they were considered 'at risk' and had a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately.

The area with the highest growth was Rotorua, where the number of applicants rose by 164 per cent to 391.

Other areas where the number of applicants doubled were Gisborne, Waikato and Central Hawke's Bay.

MP for Tukituki Lawrence Yule said the government was not building houses quick enough.

When he asked then Housing and Development Minister Phil Twyford in May when the 134 Housing NZ houses planned for Hastings would be completed, he was told 104 would be built by June next year, and the full complement by December.

When Yule recently asked Housing Minister Megan Woods for an update he was told only 47 would be completed by next June and the full complement built by April 2021.

Having a record 459 people on the list in Hastings in September 'can only be described as a shambles', he said.

'Nobody is held to account for the incompetence. The only people gaining are motel owners and this is at the expense of families who are desperate for accommodation.

'The net result is after two years of Labour we now have less State Houses in Hastings than when they took office and we now have a record 459 people on the waiting list. People living in motels have every right to be angry,' Yule said.

Associate Minister of Housing Kris Faafoi said the increase in applicants was 'in part, because of the lack of action from the previous government … when it refused to even acknowledge a housing crisis and oversaw the sell-off of state housing and the widespread implementation of market rental forces which hit our most vulnerable households hardest'.

'If the National-led Governments had delivered public housing places at the rate this Government is ramping up delivery there wouldn't be this waiting list of nearly 14,000 applications,' he said.

Faafoi said Kainga Ora was building four new homes a day and had 'about 2000 homes under construction or under contract in the pipeline'.

Budget 2018 included funding to increase the supply of public housing by around 6400 places over the following four years and, in the September 2019 quarter, 353 places were delivered by Kainga Ora and Community Housing providers, he said.

'Clearly the best way to address public housing demand and reduce reliance on transitional housing is to bring on more public housing, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The Salvation Army opens its doors to a new housing estate in Royal Oak.

'The Ministry is working with other agencies to better understand how changes in the housing sector impact public housing demand, and how we can work together to address that.

'If net population change slows and residential building continues as forecast, then supply should begin to catch up,' Faafoi said.