Housing is nearing a humanitarian crisis in Aotearoa
Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods have left thousands in housing limbo, many with nowhere to call home. But this devastating event has only amplified an existing housing crisis.
The victims of these weather events join countless others who have not had a place to call home for years, waiting on social housing lists that appear unmoving.
The housing register, which is a crude and very conservative measure of the number of people waiting for a place to live, has 23,590 applicant households on it. That has risen by 18,237 since June 2017. However, this does not accurately reflect the true, unmet need.
The Government must take action and continue its largescale investment into housing infrastructure, and in particular into new, affordable housing delivery across the country – especially in the areas impacted by recent weather events.
Now is not the time for austerity and budget cuts, it is the time for doubling down on the significant progress of the past few years. Progress made through the sheer determination and collective efforts of the sector and government agencies like Te Tā ā papa Kura Kā inga – Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. It is time to finish the job we have started. Let’s build sustainable and permanent housing not more transitional housing and motels. A motel is no place to raise a family.
To achieve this, we need all housing providers – Mā ori,
Pacific, and Pā kehā – to operate at greater scale and reflect on how we can build back better.
We need the same topline housing investment numbers from the last budget again – invested over a shorter period.
Community housing providers are committed to making sure every New Zealander is well-housed in a warm, safe, dry and affordable home. We’re doing OK with the resources we have but, collectively, alongside Kainga Ora, we’re failing.
The problem is massive, overwhelming, a bit like
Gabrielle.
Working families are one life event away from falling out of the stressed renter’s market and onto that stagnant waiting list for social housing. And there are families who have been on that list for years.
On a trip to visit an offsite housing manufacturer in Gisborne, we found that five of the full-time staff working as apprentice builders in the factory were living in their cars. These young homeless people earned living wages but had no water, no toilets, no home. It just isn’t right, is it?
In Napier, in Wairoa, in Gisborne and Tairawhiti there were already significant housing shortages before the cyclone. These are areas of high concentration, of low and moderate income, and where many of our essential workers reside – workers who have struggled for years to find adequate, secure housing that they can afford.
The reports we are receiving from our 80-plus communitybased housing providers are alarming and disturbing. In some remote places we are now close to a humanitarian problem.
The emergency response machinery of local and central government is building rapidly. Teams of people are working diligently across the worst hit areas and the local communityled responses have been nothing short of spectacular. Communities have rallied, supported and stepped up to meet immediate needs.
However, many Kiwis are exhausted. They were already exhausted before these most recent climate events. It will not be long before crisis fatigue sets in and those who were not directly impacted want to move on. We mustn’t let this happen.
As we move from emergency management into the rebuild phase, let’s work together with each of these communities and focus on longer-term solutions, not more No 8 wire temporary ones. Let us agree as active citizens on the vision we have for our country, and all our people. Let us recommit to the provision of adequate housing for all Kiwis.
It’s a big job – but when we work together and when we look and we listen to our communities when they tell us what they need, we can achieve the extraordinary.
We’ve done it before; we can do it again.
‘These young homeless people earned living wages but had no water, no toilets, no home. It just isn’t right, is it?