Emergency housing ‘a monster’ Waikato social providers want to see tamed

Monday, 4 December 2023

Tackling the emergency housing “monster” is an issue Waikato providers are desperate to see solved, but they say there needs to be efforts from the new government to boost the housing supply.

First introduced under a then National-led Government in 2016, emergency housing (EH) was pitched as a “temporary” fix for an influx of people without stable accommodation during the housing crisis.

But the issue had since inflated with millions being spent annually on motels and other temporary housing options.

For many whānau, finding the path towards renting, let alone home-ownership was a tough one, whānau ora navigator for Te Kōhao Health provider, Saphire Tai-Rakena said.

Living in EH was a week to week ordeal, confined to a small unit with a box-like fridge, one bathroom and no guarantee if they will be housed the next week.

“A lot of the motels don’t have full standard stoves or full fridge/freezers so a lot of our whānau are living day to day…their shopping for a family looks different to a normal household.”

Tai-Rakena has been instrumental in running the ‘Ready to Rent’ program under Waikato provider, Te Kohao Health, after noticing families coming to Te Kohao in crisis state and basically homeless.

The program allows up to 20 people in EH take part in a two-day information session, in collaboration with agencies like MSD and community social services with the goal of helping households to transition out of motel accommodation.

“It’s about educating whānau so they are more confident when applying and securing private rentals…we’ll be holding six wānanga within the financial year so that’s 100 -120 whānau.”

What would make a dent in the EH issue was boosting the housing supply, Tai-Rakena said.

“Our governments haven’t been building enough houses to match the growing population, then we’ve hit this housing crisis and EH has become the monster created out of it.

“The price of rental properties are going up, working families can no longer afford the rent and they’re becoming a part of the families we work with in EH.”

Under a September 2023 quarterly report by The Ministry for Social Development (MSD), Hamilton had the second highest population of people in EH after Auckland.

A year ago the Waikato Times revealed there were just under 700 children living in temporary accommodation in Hamilton at the time.

Statistics from the September 2023 quarterly report showed the numbers had reduced with 597 EH households in Hamilton, 651 adults and 570 children.

In the meantime, there were just over 25,000 people, nation-wide, on the housing register as of September 2023.

Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate, wanted to see everyone well-housed in warm, dry and safe homes.

Locally the city had a lot of good people working towards better housing solutions in the city, and the region, .

“I want to see this government work urgently on an integrated solution to address social housing needs – and to support families and children out of motels and into homes.”

The new government, made up of a three-way coalition between the National Party, Act and New Zealand has committed within their 100 day plan to transitioning families out of EH.

Under the Government’s 49 point list it was planning to “establish a priority one category on the social housing wait list to move families out of emergency housing into permanent homes more quickly”.

The numbers of young people and children in EH was heart-breaking and concerning, said MP for Hamilton West and National’s Minister for Māori Development and Associate Minister for Housing- Social Housing, Tama Potaka.

“Those numbers are astonishing plus the resource, effort and energy required to provide accommodation.

“For us getting children to the front of the queue to get them into proper housing is a fundamental driver, we’d like to see young people having a stable life, not a transient life.”

Given the dilemma was right in his patch, Potaka said he was glad to hear about local efforts like the ‘Ready to Rent’ initiative and was committed to addressing the issue both from “a fiscal perspective and whānau perspective”.

This included expanding the social housing supply significantly reducing the EH numbers in both Rotorua and Hamilton.

“EH started under National, it has jacked up massively under a Labour-led Government over the last six years.

“We want to just put our hands up and say we’re really committed to trying and address the fiscal and whānau difficulties that we now see with the scale of it and the un-intended consequences.”

Hamilton needed to continue to build houses as well as healthy communities, Te Kohao Health managing director, Lady Tureiti Moxon said.

“I think National’s policy said it was a priority, getting people out of EH…this idea was always supposed to be short-term but unfortunately because we didn’t have the housing stock it’s just gone on and on.

“It’s important that the Government continues on the trajectory to increase the number of houses.”