Cabinet will soon consider a report on a review of emergency housing but when it will be made public remains unknown.
It follows months of ministers’ reference to the review when asked questions about Rotorua’s emergency housing issues, and is revealed from parliamentary written questions submitted by Act Party housing spokeswoman Brooke Van Velden, provided to Local Democracy Reporting.
Van Velden says a successful review would include a recommendation to end the mixed-use of motels and would ensure children’s safety.
The Government says it won’t release information about the review before it’s been before Cabinet, but says it’s part of learning “what is working and what isn’t” to improve the system.
Van Velden asked Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni and Housing Minister Megan Woods questions including what progress had been made on the emergency housing system review, when it would be made public and if the Government would end the practice of mixed-use motels, and if so, what alternative model would be adopted.
Housing Minister Megan Woods responded she and Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni had taken a paper to Cabinet in August titled “progressing the emergency housing system review” and received “the final stage of advice” on it in October.
The next step would be reporting back to Cabinet, which she planned to do in December.
Woods said Cabinet papers on the review would be proactively released to the public “once final Cabinet decisions have been taken”.
In another response, Sepuloni said she was advised the Ministry of Social Development was “working closely” with the council and government agencies through the Rotorua Housing Task Force to reduce the number of motels used for emergency housing and “improve the level of support” provided to people in emergency accommodation.
She said the number of motels had reduced from 35 to 29 in recent months and the majority of those motels were no longer mixed-use.
Sepuloni said decisions would be announced shortly after Cabinet considered the recommendations of the emergency housing system review in December.
On Monday, van Velden said the responses revealed the Government was “finally making progress” on the emergency housing review, and a successful review would include a recommendation to end the mixed-use of motels and would ensure children’s safety.
She believed it needed to assess whether the Government was adequately sharing data across agencies in relation to emergency housing and measuring cost against the value of a service a contracted motel provided.
Act MP Brooke van Velden. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“We need to track how often a kid in a motel is changing schools and making sure that family has support to get that kid to school.”
“We are setting and forgetting and allowing people to live their lives permanently in emergency accommodation.”
Van Velden wanted more information shared with the public as soon as possible on the review, “so we can have a fulsome discussion on what the next steps should be.”
She did not believe the Government had its priorities in order.
“We have thousands of people living in temporary accommodation for extended parts of their lives and it’s not safe and it’s not where we should be housing people long term.”
She believed the Government was distracted by what she termed as ideological and “race” issues.
“None of this goes any way to helping people with the real issues they face day-to-day on the ground.”
On Tuesday, Woods told Local Democracy Reporting the Government recognised the difficulties of people living in emergency housing and population numbers meant that while the Government had a “large programme” of building under way, demand was still outstripping supply.
The Government had built 230 public homes in Rotorua, and 117 transitional homes, she said, with a further 300 public homes under construction or “in the pipeline”. The Government had also invested $120 million in housing-enabling stormwater infrastructure, she said.
“Something that will help more housing get built in Rotorua is the medium density rules the city is adopting, and which the Act party opposes. Cutting red tape to allow more new housing to be built at a denser scale in urban areas is a sensible solution to New Zealand’s lack of housing.”
She said the Government was “realistic” the need for emergency housing wouldn’t be solved “overnight” but was aiming to significantly reduce the demand for it within five years.
Among wraparound support for the 105 children in emergency housing in Rotorua at the end of October was a school bus service aimed at providing “normality” to children, which Woods said had been “very successful” and well-received.
Woods said the Government was applying lessons from its trial directly contracting motels to its emergency housing review, but she would not “get ahead of any Cabinet decisions”.
“The review is a continuation of the work we started in 2019 to complement the Homelessness Action Plan. It’s focused on the government-funded elements of the emergency housing system, namely emergency housing special needs grants, transitional housing, and other related forms of emergency housing (as in Rotorua, and motels used in the Covid-19 response). It also acknowledges the need to enable Māori-led solutions in the delivery of appropriate accommodation and support services.
“We won’t be able to solve the housing crisis we inherited overnight but we recognise we need to learn from what is working and what isn’t and improve the system.”
Local Democracy Reporting is public interest journalism funded by NZ On Air.
