Food, or rent? Wellington council housing tenants say they can't afford both

Monday, 29 November 2021

Access to the income-related rental subsidy (IRRS) would mean council housing tenants pay no more than 25 per cent of their income on rent - an amount that would be hundreds of dollars cheaper for some.

Long-suffering council housing tenants are asking for rent relief, and say they don’t have money enough for food after paying exorbitant rents.

Labour MP Paul Eagle says the Government will report back to those tenants “before Christmas” about access to an income-related rental subsidy (IRRS). At the moment, they can’t access the subsidy – and Eagle wouldn’t be drawn on whether that would change when the Government does report back.

Extending that subsidy would cost the Government $13.2m a year – money they have until now been reluctant to spend, despite mounting pressure from most sectors of society and impassioned pleas from cash-strapped tenants.

About 100 people attended a public meeting, on Saturday, organised by tenants – the crescendo of a months-long campaign called IRRS 4 ALL.

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Council housing tenant Terry Kautaharua Nepe is faced with a stark choice: rent or food. He says the Government should extend an income-related rental subsidy (IRRS) to councils to ease those woes.

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Council housing tenants Debbie Port and Rosalina Ngakopu lead the charge at a rally, calling on the Government to extend income-related rents to tenants in council housing.

Terry Kautaharua Nepe, who lives with his partner at Newtown Park Apartments, waved a rent arrears notice from the council when he spoke at the meeting.

Wellington mayor Andy Foster talks to a council housing tenant at a community meeting on Saturday.

“I had to pick between paying the rent, or buying food,” he said. “Then the last few weeks, I’ve just been picking food – that’s why I got this [a rent arrears notice]. I just got sick of starving.”

A poster outside St Peter’s on Willis, in inner-city Wellington, urges Housing Minister Megan Woods to “do the right thing” by extending an income-related rental subsidy to council housing tenants.

The notice threatened eviction if he didn’t catch up on rent – although Nepe wasn’t sure how seriously to take that threat. It follows several claims from tenants that high rents would lead to homelessness and a greater burden on Government coffers through emergency housing.

Council housing tenants “didn’t want a handout”, Nepe said. Instead, they wanted parity with other social housing tenants, who can access the rental subsidy.

The council believes the subsidy would “change the lives of tenants overnight”, and reverse the fortunes of its ailing housing arm, by turning a $6m deficit into a $5m surplus.

It would ensure tenants paid affordable rents by setting them at 25 per cent of income, while the Government topped up the rest. The subsidy is available to tenants with Kāinga Ora, or new tenants with community housing providers (CHPs) – but not tenants in council housing.

Wellington City Council’s 3500 tenants instead paid 70 per cent of market rates, with the rest discounted by the council. It is estimated that 1400 of those tenants currently pay at least 35 per cent of their income towards rent. A solo mother, in one instance, was paying 86 per cent of her income on rent.

And while the Government is due to respond to tenants before Christmas, they could still face an agonising wait. Extending the subsidy would mean changing the legislation, and that would likely take 12 to 18 months.

Green MP Jan Logie said the Government had rescinded on an earlier promise to extend the subsidy. Labour and the Greens were vocally opposed to the National Government’s decision, in 2014, to not extend the subsidy to councils, she said.

The Greens earlier called on the Government to fix what was a “two-tiered support system for rent relief”.

Eagle had urged council housing tenants to write letters to him about the situation, which he would take to Housing Minster Megan Woods. Over the last month, he had received “more than 500 letters” from tenants.

On Saturday, Woods suggested the council might consider funding its housing unit through rates.

At the meeting, mayor Andy Foster appeared to quash that idea. “I can’t see any of those models fixing the problem without access to income-related rents,” he said. “The reality is we’ve got a spade. The Government is the one with the big digger.”

Foster established a mayoral taskforce, including tenants, to investigate solutions, and it would meet for the first time tonight. The council is also due to discuss a notice of motion, which includes options for temporary relief, such as a rent freeze, at a meeting on Thursday.

One longer-term solution was establishing a CHP to which the council would lease its housing stock, as Christchurch City Council did. However, in that scenario, only new tenants could access the subsidy – the current tenant base could not. That was “an unacceptable offer”, tenants said at the meeting.