Tears for healthy family home
When Monique Sylva moved her family into their brand new state home her emotions overflowed.
Their previous house was a three-bedroom Housing New Zealand property in Henderson that, at 25 years old, had seen better days.
The mother of four, including twin boys, says she and her mum cried when she moved into the new Henderson house.
‘‘I love everything about this house - compared to the other house. This is like a mansion,’’ Sylva says.
‘‘This new house is a hell of a lot warmer. My kids had strep throat at the other house, but since we’ve moved here their chests, their coughing ... everything’s gone.’’
It was love at first sight for Sylva when she saw the new fourbedroom property during its final stages of construction.
She decided it would work for her family.
‘‘As soon as I saw it I just thought ‘I’ve got to have that house’,’’ Sylva says.
The 29-year-old says her children, aged four to 13, now love having their own bedrooms, except for four-year-old Chance, who still prefers to sleep in mum’s room.
‘‘When we first got here they (the children) just ran around hysterically,’’ Sylva says.
Sylva became a Housing New Zealand tenant more than five years ago when she found herself unable to afford a private rental.
The house is one of five modern, four-bedroom family social housing homes build on a 2168 metre squared site in Universal Drive, in Henderson.
Housing New Zealand estimates it will build up to around 660 new homes, with about 636 being for social housing clients.
Building is expected to take about two to three years and development will take place across more than 40 sites.
A Housing New Zealand spokesperson says the houses will range from one to five bedroom homes and will house both applicants from the Social Development Ministry social housing register and existing Housing New Zealand families transferred from homes on land ready for redevelopment.
In the last three years, Housing New Zealand has also built 171 new homes across 65 sites in west Auckland.
This excludes Community Group Housing.