Emergency motel stays have ‘peaked’
Social Housing Minister Amy Adams says the government’s emergency motel stays for those in dire need of housing are finally dropping off.
The scheme was introduced in 2016 with an annual budget of $2m, which was immediately blown out. The budget and number of grants have increased every quarter, reaching $12.6m in the months of April, May, and June, up from $8.8m in the first three months of the year.
This money resulted in 9218 grants for short seven-day stays at motels. Given the trend of huge rises, many expect the JulySeptember quarter numbers to be even worse, but Adams told Stuff they are wrong: the motel-stays have peaked.
‘‘While we’ve spent a lot in the last quarter we’re also seeing that that has peaked now, and there is some really pretty good signs that that is dropping, which is exactly what we expected,’’ Adams said.
She said a ramp up in transitional housing – more traditional homes for people to stay in while waiting for social housing – had finally cut into the rise in motelstays.
‘‘This is exactly what we wanted to happen but it takes time to build 1400-odd transitional houses, and the motel grants have been a way for us to bridge that.’’
She was already seeing a dropoff of around 100 families a week since the peak in the last quarter. The current quarter began on June 1. The next public release on the numbers will be in October,
‘‘...we see people coming in on almost-daily basis who are homeless.’’ Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford
just after the general election. Labour housing spokesman and Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford said he would believe any drop off when he saw it.
‘‘At my electorate in west Auckland and with my colleagues in south Auckland we see people coming in on almost-daily basis who are homeless. The latest quarter shows they are spending nearly $140k a day, and all the anecdotal evidence points to homelessness being worse this winter than it was last winter. We are only 26 days into this new quarter, and we’ve seen a massive blowout in every other quarter. I think she’s clutching at straws.’’
Twyford said people weren’t angry at the motel stays themselves - they were angry that they were necessary.
‘‘What they should done last winter is roll out the kind of emergency housing programme that they did after the earthquake in Canterbury.’’