This is why, when Housing Minister Chris Bishop called me last year to ask if I could contribute to creating a more sustainable, more efficient and more effective Kāinga Ora, I agreed to bring my business turnaround experience to bear on the challenge.
As a newcomer to public sector governance, it’s been a real eye-opener to see the difference between the perceptions of Kāinga Ora (and the tenants we house and support) and the organisation’s realities.
From everything I’ve seen, Kāinga Ora is full of passionate New Zealanders supporting other New Zealanders. I can say with confidence they genuinely care about people in need and want to do the best they can for tenants and the taxpayer.
I acknowledge there’s a very small number of tenants that cause serious disruption for their neighbours and that’s completely unacceptable.
We are moving more swiftly and taking firmer action to address this, and manage rent debt, but these situations often play out publicly to help satisfy daily news, social media and talkback cycles and contribute to negative public perceptions of Kāinga Ora and our tenants.
Communities need to be more supportive of people in social housing and, we need to change some of the rhetoric around Kāinga Ora tenants.
The fact is, the vast majority of Kāinga Ora tenants are everyday New Zealanders who just struggle financially, lack family support or suffer from conditions which limit their ability to live well independently.
There are also limits to what Kāinga Ora can do in its role as a landlord.
Kāinga Ora must take tenants in priority order from the Ministry of Social Development’s Housing Register and is on the same legal footing as any other landlord, meaning we don’t have any special powers to “control’' tenants or choose who we give tenancies to.
We must act within the rules of the Residential Tenancies Act, like all other landlords.
That said, we know we must do better as a landlord, neighbour and publicly funded organisation and improve how we deliver new homes and maintain our housing stock.
To achieve this, Kāinga Ora is resetting to better serve New Zealand communities.
By getting back to basics on our core social housing mission, we will improve our ability to provide safe, warm, dry and affordable homes and be a good, supportive landlord for New Zealanders in need; while ensuring we can sustainably invest in social housing well into the future.
The plan outlines how we’ll improve our housing portfolio by efficiently and cost-effectively renewing and maintaining our older state homes as well as better matching housing to tenant needs.
Internally we’re improving the organisation’s performance, with a focus on cost-effectiveness and ensuring value for money.
As key operating improvement initiatives are embedded, Kāinga Ora’s financial sustainability will significantly improve.
We are committed to playing our part. But it’s not all on social housing providers to address this wider societal need.
We all have a part to play.
So, on that note, I ask, respectfully, that New Zealanders reconsider their attitude to social housing providers and to the people who live in the houses we provide.
The need for social housing in New Zealand to support those who can’t live independently without help is a societal problem.
It will not be addressed by wishing it away, ignoring it, or thinking that social housing is ok so long as it is not in my street or neighbourhood.
Communities need to be more supportive of people in social housing and we need to change some of the rhetoric around Kāinga Ora tenants.
Demonising or stereotyping social housing tenants is unhelpful and doesn’t recognise they are mostly well-meaning, house-proud people who need some assistance to get on their feet and hopefully transition back to independent living over time.
As we work to implement our reset plan, I also ask New Zealanders - and commentators - to give us a reasonable chance to prove we can do a better job – to prove we can build and renew houses at good value to the taxpayer, to support tenants to live well and to demonstrate we can move out the small minority of tenants who are not willing to pay rent or be good neighbours.
If we make mistakes we’ll fix them.
This year will be a year of significant change for Kāinga Ora.
We have a lot of work to do and a lot of previous decisions to reset before we will start seeing the results we want.
We have to accept that some of the resetting of past decisions will come at a short-term pain, but it’s the future that matters more.
Together with my board colleagues and re-energised management team, I will ensure we deliver significant performance improvements and I’ll be pleased to report our progress to the public in full.
