Sallies betrayed us over housing - tenants' group

A state house tenants' group has accused the Salvation Army of betrayal because of its support for transferring some state houses to charities.

Sue Henry of the Housing Lobby, representing tenants mainly in the Mt Wellington/Glen Innes area of Auckland, attacked Salvation Army social services director Major Campbell Roberts for agreeing to serve on the advisory group that has recommended the change.

"The Salvation Army has become quislings for bad Government policy," she said.

"Why would Campbell Roberts go to bed with the Government with a policy that is promoting transience and a temporary lifestyle of insecurity, because that's exactly what this is doing?"

The Housing Shareholders' Advisory Group, chaired by Fletcher Building director Alan Jackson, also included Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson and former Ngai Tahu Development Corporation head Paul White as well as an investment banker, a former property company manager and the director of the NZ Housing Foundation.

It has recommended transferring "either capital or dwellings to selected non-government organisations", extending income-related rental subsidies to those groups, and creating new tenancy agreements for state house tenants that are limited to "the duration of the need".

Salvation Army spokesman Captain Gerry Walker hailed the report as "a good first step" towards solving a shortage of affordable housing.

But Ms Henry said the proposals would amount to bringing back the last National Government's 1990s policy of market rents, because tenants in non-government houses would have to apply for subsidies through Work and Income just as state tenants did in the 1990s.

Tenants Protection Association co-ordinator Angela Maynard said the report represented a philosophical shift away from state responsibility for housing people in need.

She warned that restricting state houses to "the duration of need" would force families to leave friends and force children to change schools, disrupting their education.

However, Major Roberts and Mr Jackson said last night that their proposals would increase the total pool of social housing by giving community groups an asset they could use to borrow private funds to build more houses.

"The Government is saying they can't put any more money in. Well how do you expand that housing?" Major Roberts asked.

"If you were to transfer to a community organisation 100 houses and then require through a covenant that they can only be used for social housing, and say out of that 100 houses you might borrow 50 per cent of their worth and provide extra new housing with that, so you would grow the pool."

He said community agencies had been held back by lack of capital and inability to access the income-related rental subsidy.

Mr Jackson said 30,000 to 40,000 more social housing units would be required to meet the need.

He said extending the income-related rental subsidy to, for example, 20,000 more houses over the next five years would cost $60 million to $70 million a year.