Wellington ‘high and complex’ housing crunch
Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Housing Wellington’s most-challenging tenants is coming to a head with a “forever home” contract ending and Kāinga Ora paying $181,848 for security in another “high and complex“ needs block.
In response to parliamentary written questions from Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, Housing Minister Chris Bishop confirmed the Kāinga Ora (KO) Church St housing complex, off Boulcott St in central Wellington, was 40% – or 39 units – vacant.
Problems with unauthorised access and “some disruptive behaviour” in the flats saw Fire and Emergency and police advocate for security, which the state housing provider was now paying $181,848 for this financial year.
Meanwhile, up the road on Rolleston St in Mount Cook, the rebuilt Te Ō state housing opened in April 2024 with City Missioner Murray Edridge hoping it would become a “forever home” for some of Wellington’s hardest-to-home residents.
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About 20 of the 80 Te Ō residents had “high and complex” needs and required the round-the-clock help (called single site supported housing) available at the Rolleston St site. But the government contract to run that service ended in June and Edridge, on Monday, said it could be a “huge issue” housing the 20 tenants.
“Who know what will happen because these people need that support,” he said. He was in talks with the Government about a solution but it was not confirmed.
Paul said the solution was not simply moving the 20 Te Ō high needs tenants into the 39 empty Church St units.
“Church St is a broken KO model where they cram high needs, complex tenants into apartments and expect them to do well.”
Church St was used to house many people from KO’s closed Dixon St flats, which had a litany of issues with problem behaviour. Meanwhile, the previous government had demolished the nearby Arlington social housing complex with plans of rebuilding but the new government paused the build and it has remained an empty site.
“The solution is the Government must build Arlington and fund single site supported housing at Te Ō and some at Arlington,” Paul said.
“Then it’s time to reallocate Church St to tenants who are a bit more independent who would benefit from living centrally.”
KO greater Wellington regional director Sarah Willson said it had delayed tenanting some Church St units while “we worked through options for managing the complex”.
KO was now actively working to fill all units and expected them to be occupied in the coming months.
“[The placement team] are taking a careful and considered approach as we want to make sure that we get the right mix of people living there,” Willson said.
The Salvation Army and Community Housing Aotearoa released a report on Monday into homelessness in New Zealand showing that, of 20 agencies dealing with the issue nationally, none reported a decrease in homelessness and 12 reported increases in the past year.
Funding for housing support programmes had dropped $79 million since 2024 while decline rates for emergency housing went from 4% to 35%, it says.
A recent announcement of $17m government funding was welcome but a “short-term fix”, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hutson from Salvation Army said.
“Homelessness is not just about housing, it’s about health, addiction, trauma, and poverty. Without wraparound support and sustained investment, people will continue to fall through the cracks.”
The Ministry of Social Development social housing register currently has a Wellington City waiting list of 621, of whom 585 are top priority.