Kainga Ora vacancies fall after minister’s letter
THE number of Kainga ¯ Ora homes sitting empty is on its way down, after the Housing Minister penned a stern letter telling the agency to fill them urgently. Chris Bishop wrote to Kainga ¯ Ora’s board in January, after The Post’s Erin Gourley reported it had thousands of vacant properties late last year, despite a growing waiting list for social housing.
That represented about 5% of the total social housing stock, which was ‘‘completely unacceptable’’, Mr Bishop said.
But Kainga ¯ Ora central deputy chief executive Daniel Soughtton said the number of vacant, readytolet homes had ‘‘generally been trending downwards’’.
The agency recently changed the way it counts vacancies so it was more accurate, as previous numbers included homes being redeveloped, retrofitted, or disposed of — which were actually not able to be lived in.
Its new figures show in August last year, there were 1733 empty homes which could be tenanted — about 2.4% of the total stock. That had dropped to 1188 by the end of March, which is 1.65% of the total stock.
Of those homes, 163 were newly built that month, 650 were classed as ‘‘ready to let’’, and 375 were undergoing minor repairs, and would soon be ready for people to move in.
‘‘Because the number of homes under repair and the number of homes coming into service does vary from monthtomonth, there will always be small fluctuations in the data, which is why we focus on the longterm trend,’’ Mr
Soughtton said.
‘‘We are confident we will continue to see vacant home numbers continue to decline longterm, although it [is] important to note that there will always be a level of vacancies.’’
Since the minister’s letter, the agency had made an effort to get people into vacant homes faster, including working more closely with Ministry of Social Development staff, who know housing register applicants and can help match them to homes, introducing group viewings and signups where multiple customers view homes at once, and putting extra resource in areas where a high number of new homes are being delivered.
The agency was also improving maintenance processes to ensure repairs were completed as quickly as possible, reducing the time a home was vacant.