Waiting list for public housing cracks 10,000
The public housing waitlist has rocketed past 10,000 as more people wait longer for public housing.
At the end of 2018 fully 10,712 eligible households were waiting for state or social housing – 73 per cent more than a year ago, and over three times the number waiting at the end of 2015.
The vast majority – 78 per cent – were deemed as ‘‘priority A’’, meaning the Government believed they were the most in need of help. Almost half were in Auckland.
The average time to house those people was 157.5 days, up from 122.4 days a year prior – but this was somewhat skewed by a few long applications. The median time to house was 98 days, up from 58 a year prior.
This is despite the Government building 1658 new public housing places over the last year, the largest increase in a decade.
Ministry of Housing and Urban Development officials blamed higher rents, greater awareness of public housing, and a slowdown in the rate of people exiting public housing for the increase.
Housing Minister Phil Twyford said concerted effort over ‘‘many years’’ would be needed to fix homelessness.
‘‘While progress is being made on building more homes, we know demand for housing continues to increase. The hidden homeless that we warned about at the beginning of last year are continuing to come forward with the Housing Register increasing to 10,712 in the last quarter.
‘‘Our Government has been clear that the best way to tackle the housing crisis is to build more houses, and the best way to tackle homelessness is to build more public housing – that’s exactly what we are doing.
‘‘Since coming to office, our Government has built 1191 new state houses.’’
Twyford paused ‘‘tenancy review’’ last year – the process by which Housing New Zealand check whether a tenant is still eligible for a state or social home. National housing spokeswoman Judith Collins vigorously criticised the move, but Twyford said previously that it had not contributed significantly to more people staying on in state homes – only around 200 households would have been up for review during the pause.
Tenancy review resumed on Monday with some changes: any family with children or someone over 65 is now exempt.
‘‘If we can help tenants who are more likely to be able to move with the right support, we can free up public housing places for those in greater need on the Housing Register,’’ Twyford said.
Twyford is facing pressure on multiple fronts as his Kiwi-Build policy is ‘‘recalibrated’’. The interim targets for the affordable home scheme have been scrapped and in some markets buyers don’t appear to be interested in the homes.
Emergency motel stays were on the up too. In the three months to the end of 2018, 15,676 emergency housing grants for motel stays were granted – up from 14,000 the quarter prior. These went to just under 2700 individual clients – with many taking multiple grants. This was up from 2585 in the quarter prior.
Collins said Twyford’s multiple reforms to private rental market – both enacted and promised – had driven up rents as landlords were selling up.
‘‘Landlords are leaving the market in droves. The Government in its steps to try and attack landlords has actually sent a whole lot of people out of that market and that means that there is now more people wanting public housing,’’ Collins said.
‘‘If you are a great big landlord with multiple properties the Residential Tenancies Act changes are generally something you can deal with. The problem is a lot of housing is provided by people with one home that they have as an investment, and they are just finding the costs of it are too hard, they are too hard for them.’’
Twyford received advice last year from officials saying rents could rise as the result of reforms to tenancy laws thanks to landlords feeling like they were under assault and selling up to owner-occupiers, who generally have less people in each house.
Collins also criticised the new tenancy review exemptions, saying plenty of Housing NZ tenants lived in houses that were too large or not suited to them, and would likely be happy to move to a newer property with fewer bedrooms.