Tova podcast: the emergency motel crisis and what the Government’s going to do about it

Thursday, 29 February 2024

Tova O’Brien is Stuff’s Chief’s Political Correspondent and host of the weekly political podcast, Tova. Listen to the latest episode, Blood, faeces, vomit and cockroaches: inside the emergency housing crisis, here.

The number of families in emergency housing is the lowest it's been since April 2020 but before you breathe a sigh of relief or start thinking all’s right with the world, take pause.

There are still 6495 people living in emergency motels.

Nearly half of them are children - 3216 kids growing up in motels.

You’ve heard the stories - and you’ll hear more on the latest episode of the Tova podcast - about the state of some of those motels.

Of the 2880 households in emergency housing, more than a thousand families have been living in a motel for over 6 months, more than 450 for over a year and, believe it or not, there are 144 families living in often-cramped motels for longer than two years.

Two years.

The grants they get to stay in emergency accommodation are supposed to be for up to a week at a time.

So yes, numbers are tracking down but it’s still not good and in January, the latest figures, a slight uptick again in the number of children. 30 more kids living in emergency motels since the month before.

On this week’s episode of the Tova podcast, we talk to a mother who’s right now going through the emergency housing system - and spoiler - it ain’t pretty. She gives us a frontline look at the squalor some of our most vulnerable people in extreme need are expected to live in.

We also talk to a provider of one of the emergency motels she was sent to about the frankly disgusting conditions she found. You may find his response surprising.

And the Housing Minister Chris Bishop is with us too. We get the inside word on some big plans afoot by the new government to address the crisis in emergency motels.