State housing ‘woefully inadequate’
Marlborough will need close to 800 state homes in 10 years’ time as the region struggles to cope with its growing ‘‘at risk’’ population.
A Salvation Army report released on Tuesday said Marlborough had the lowest social housing supply in the country in relation to demand, something the report’s author described as ‘‘woefully inadequate’’.
Salvation Army senior policy advisor Alan Johnson said Marlborough needed to almost double its social housing stock in the next decade as ‘‘housing-related poverty’’ ballooned.
Marlborough currently had 437 state houses.
People at risk of housingrelated poverty were people likely to depend on social housing longterm or permanently as their circumstances were unlikely to improve.
They were mostly beneficiaries with disabilities or health issues, and pensioners who could not afford market rents.
That group was expected to grow as more people reached retirement age, while the number of beneficiaries would remain relatively stable, the report said.
There were already about 300 pensioners living in Housing New Zealand homes in Marlborough, and 5 per cent of people aged over 65 were ‘‘at risk’’, Johnson said.
‘‘People can suffer setbacks in middle age, such as illness, loss of a good job, relationship breakdown, or lost investments. Then they reach retirement in not very good shape, financially.’’
Pressure on Marlborough’s housing market was worsened by people moving into the region, and a lot of those people were ‘‘not poor people’’.
‘‘But when those people are buying up houses, it makes it even harder to find a rental.’’
The lack of social housing in Marlborough was evidence of under-investment by the Govern- ment, Johnson said. ‘‘We need to work out as a country whether we’re ready to see an increasing level of homelessness, people living under bridges and in parks, and kids dropping out of school.
‘‘And if we’re not happy to see that, we need to provide enough social housing. And that is an achievable dream.’’ Northland Auckland Waikato Bay of Plenty Marlborough
Kaikoura MP Stuart Smith said Housing New Zealand was already increasing its stock in Marlborough.
‘‘It needs to rejig its stock – it has too many big houses when the need is for one and two bedroom houses. But they’re reviewing that, and these things take time.’’
Long-term there were several changes underway that would make it easier to find rentals, easing pressure on the social housing supply, Stuart said.
A multimillion-dollar building project to provide migrant vineyard worker accommodation at the former Country Life Motel site on the outskirts of Blenheim was expected to free up at least 20 houses, he said.
The Boulevard Park subdivision and the Omaka Landing subdivision would also provide more houses when completed, he said. ‘‘We’ll see some pressure come off the lower end of the market as those sections become available.’’
He was sceptical of Johnson’s estimate for social housing need in Marlborough over the next 10 years, saying it ‘‘sounds a very high number’’.
‘‘I think it would be better if we had more housing, but things have changed quite quickly. We’re seeing a great proportion of people arriving from outside the region and it’s hard to model projections based on that.’’
He also refuted the idea that superannuitants were increasingly reliant on social housing. But they would get an extra $13 a week, if National was still in Government after the election, and low income earners would benefit from a tax cut, he said.