More relief for low-income tenants

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Soaring rents in Auckland and some other centres have spurred the first boost to maximum accommodation supplements for low-income families in seven years.

The weekly maximum in central and northern Auckland will from next April rise from $150 to $225 for households of three or more people.

It will rise to $165 in other parts of Auckland and centres such as Tauranga, Wellington, Nelson and Queenstown, and from $100 to $120 in urban areas of Northland and the Waikato.

About 95,000 of the 250,000 households and individuals now drawing an accommodation supplement will receive an average weekly increase of $19, and the Government says an extra 15,000 people will become eligible for the benefit from October.

The average supplement is now about $54 a week nationally, and about $74 in Auckland.

But housing lobbyists question the Budget's emphasis on the supplement, saying the only long-term solution to difficulties in finding affordable accommodation is a major boost to the state housing stock.

Auckland-based Child Poverty Action Group researcher Alan Johnson said the long lead-in time until the ceilings were raised in April would only encourage rents to be boosted further, making the supplement even more of a "landlord's subsidy".