Blood, faeces, vomit and cockroaches: inside the emergency housing crisis

Friday, 1 March 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.

In an exclusive interview with the Tova podcast, Housing Minister Chris Bishop has signalled sweeping changes to address the emergency motel crisis.

A reduction target for the number of people living in emergency motels and an eventual cut to the budget for emergency accommodation are being planned alongside the Government’s commitment in its 100-day plan to create a priority category to shift families who have been in emergency housing for longer than 12 weeks to the front of the queue for social housing.

An announcement is expected next week ahead of the 100-day deadline on Friday and the Minister is also considering spot checks and tighter standards to ensure people in need aren’t living in squalor.

He revealed further details of the changes when Tova put to him the case of single mother Juanita de Senna, who felt forced to sleep in her car rather than the filthy and dangerous emergency motels she was allocated by the Ministry of Social Development.

De Senna described the first to Tova, “It was beyond belief, it was astonishing.. vomit, dried vomit down the walls on the exterior of the building.”

And inside it wasn’t much better: “So much grease and surface dirt on the floors, faeces, blood on the walls, crude drawings of genitalia, sexually explicit and degrading language targeting females, cockroaches, old food that was growing fungus in the microwave, stove tops and the communal area just covered in cockroaches, fruit flies, food flies. It was just absolutely horrific.”

A room in the hotel costs $350 per night for use as emergency accommodation, with taxpayers funding grants issued by the Ministry.

The next day, when she went to check a second motel she’d been sent to, de Senna saw gang members, a drug deal and drug use as she arrived.

“My 11-year-old son has never seen his parents even consume alcohol. In what parallel universe would I be okay with him witnessing drug deals and gang members?” she said.

After queries, the Ministry of Social Development visited the first motel they’d sent de Senna to.

The Ministry refused an interview, but in a statement said: “[The motel] does not meet the standard of cleanliness that we would expect. We have reminded the supplier of their obligations under our Emergency Supplier standards and discussed the need to make sure the premises and amenities are clean and tidy as part of that.”

MSD says it will revisit the site in the next fortnight.

Speaking to Tova anonymously, the accommodation provider in question explained that while most of the emergency accommodation clients were good, some of them were bad and it could be hard to stay on top of things.

“They punch holes in walls, they scream and make a big racket and so we have employed security, we have called the police, police that have never arrived.”

He says he faced an attempted stabbing and police failed to show after a client had completely destroyed a room.

“There were holes in the walls everywhere, like everywhere, there was not even a single place left. The room was completely demolished, the TV was broken, the walls were broken, the bed was broken, the lights were pulled out, the cable was broken, the fridge was broken, the kitchen was broken, everything was broken.”

He apologised to de Senna for her experience at his motel.

The Housing Minister says the situation de Senna was confronted with is all too common. “Speaking as a local MP, my office over the last few years has dealt with a range of really tragic circumstances, families, mums, dads, kids living in really grotty conditions, frankly.”

Asked to give a commitment that, under this Government, standards in emergency motels will be lifted, the Housing Minister promised, “Yes, we’re doing a lot of work on that right now.”

As it stands MSD says its preliminary checks include checking the Companies Register, completing an insolvency check or running an internet search. It does reference physically approving the motels for use.

Bishop says he’s considering spot checks and tighter standards that motels have to meet, and be physically checked before being brought online as emergency accommodation.

“We've got a suite of work underway around that so spot checks are something we are looking at, standards around it as well because, ultimately, if the Government is going to help pay for people to live in motels - and we're paying quite a lot of money, by the way, it's very, very expensive - I think the Government and taxpayers are entitled to expect a reasonable standard.”

Next week the Government will announce details of the priority one category on the social housing waitlist to move families out of emergency housing into permanent homes more quickly.

But there are 1665 families - thousands of people - who have been living in motels for longer than three months. The average stay is now six and a half months and, as of January, there are 144 families who have been living in emergency motels for longer than two years.

Bishop says when they announce the changes next week it will include projections for how long it will take to rehouse those families but says it will take years to solve.

“I just want to warn you, and people listening, that this is not going to be something that we make progress on in six months or a year. This is a medium-term thing.”

Asked for a commitment that none of those families will end up on the streets or sleeping in cars, Bishop said nobody wants that: “Certainly the intention is for that not to happen, absolutely. Emergency housing will always be there for people who need it.”

The Government plans to measure progress too. Asked if it has a target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing by the end of the term, Bishop said, “We are looking at a specific target around that.. To really focus the system.”

Between June 2016 and June 2023, more than $1.4 billion had been spent on emergency housing grants.

The Minister says the Government wants that budget reduced.

“Absolutely, over time we want to be able to do that.”

“I’m not guaranteeing that in this year’s Budget because we’ve got real need there right now, so it’s going to be a medium-term challenge but absolutely, over time, we want to get that fiscal cost for the Government down.”