Housing support manager Jacqueline Pohatu will be stationed full-time at the new Hinemoa St housing complex.
Housing support manager Jacqueline Pohatu will be stationed full-time at the new Hinemoa St housing complex.
The social housing crisis in Horowhenua will ease ever so slightly with the opening of a new housing complex in Hinemoa St in Levin this morning.
The keys to 26 brand-new dwellings will now be handed over to eager tenants, many of whom had been reliant on emergency housing or had been without long-term accommodation for years.
Those residents will be greeted by the smell of fresh paint and new carpet. Grass seed has taken and sprouted in the green areas outside of what is a mix of three-, two- and one-bedroom apartments.
Each block faces inward, looking down on the carpark adjacent to a playground area that is all but complete.
The new housing complex in Hinemoa St was formally opened this morning and 26 units will be occupied by the end of next week.
The social housing development, estimated to cost more than $15 million, would go some way to address a chronic housing shortage and will increase public housing stocks in Horowhenua to a total of 224 dwellings.
The dire shortage of social housing is not only in Horowhenua but nationwide. Across New Zealand there were 25,389 applicants on the Housing Register as of December last year, an increase of 9.8 per cent from the previous year.
In Horowhenua, the number of people on the social housing register in 2018 was 84. In June 2022, it was 237.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact Horowhenua was experiencing a population boom. The district’s population increased by 5000 people between 2013 and 2021 to 36,500. By 2040, there were estimates that as many as 25,000 more people would be living in the district.
Property developer Wayne Bishop, Muaupoko Tribal Authority CEO Di Rump and Salvation Army Social Housing (Sash) national director Greg Foster at the opening of the Hinemoa St housing complex.
Salvation Army Social Housing (Sask), which has a contract with the Ministry of Social Housing and Urban Development for the provision of housing for people on the social housing register, has leased the Hinemoa St property from Levin-based building company Wayne Bishop Group.
Sash currently manages 25 villages in New Zealand, comprising more than 500 units. Tenants have been selected by Sash as needing social housing and are typically a mix of genders, ages and ethnicities. Sash works hard to address transience, with applicants likely to reside there for 10 years or more.
National director Greg Foster said it was a model that worked and Sash would manage the complex through the government contract via a long-term lease. It has a 15-year contract with the ministry and a 15-year lease with Wayne Bishop Group.
Tradesmen who work for the Wayne Bishop Group share in a breakfast after a ceremony to formally open the new housing complex in Hinemoa St.
Full-time housing support manager Jacqueline Pohatu will be on-site to “support whānau on their journey and aspirations and dreams and what that might look like for them.
“When you are in an emergency housing situation, you are in survival mode. Now they have a home to do that dreaming,” she said.
Pohatu had a background in social services and supported the kaupapa of Salvation Army to help residents connect to social services and assist with budgeting, food, health and whānau support.
Meanwhile, the complex was given a formal blessing this morning by mana whenua Muaupoko and Salvation Army representatives, who along with key stakeholders attended a dawn ceremony.
Community groups sing a waiata at the official blessing of the new Hinemoa St housing complex in Levin.
Muaupoko CEO Di Rump said the current housing crisis had created a situation where transient living had become the new normal for some whānau.
“A lot of issues can stem from a lack of housing. Having a home, it will make a difference for whānau who live here,” she said.
Bishop said the development was six years in the making, the first five spent planning and gaining consent, with the actual build taking little more than a year.
“Five years of hui, one year of ‘do-ee’,” he said.
Another 26 units adjacent to the new complex are expected to be up within the next six months. Once fully complete, the complex would also include a community hall, 46 car parks, an outdoor community area, a children’s playgound, orchard and central administration block.
