Society's most vulnerable will receive a $650 million funding boost spanning health, welfare and education services aimed at helping those at-risk "lead better lives".

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley has ruled out cancelling the debt families rack up emergency housing.

Housing initiatives will feature strongly in Thursday's Budget, but there is unlikely to be any further help for first-home buyers.

COMMENT: The same crisis that is locking so many young people out of homeownership is locking our poorest families out of any home at all, writes Andrew Little. That's not the Kiwi way.

COMMENT: Meeting the housing needs of all Kiwis requires the Government to make changes right along the housing pipeline, says Minister for Social Housing Paula Bennett.

COMMENT: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the Government isn't making election promises to those in need.

Housing New Zealand has sold 18 state houses on the West Coast over the past four years netting $2,852,600.

A banker who Housing NZ paid $2.3 million to help it sell state houses won the most lucrative contracts in closed tenders, an investigation has found.

Housing NZ has spent $5.8 million so far this year testing and cleaning up state houses contaminated with meth, and more than half of them in Auckland.

Previous homeowners are able to get back into the housing market using KiwiSaver if they're in the same financial position as a first-home buyer.

At least 2 per cent of Housing New Zealand tenants are not eligible to live in a state house.

As most Kiwis head home, some have no homes to go to - but that is changing in Hamilton, which aims to end homelessness this year.

Housing New Zealand chief executive Glen Sowry reveals to Anne Gibson how his first career was as a sparky.

Proposals to rezone Auckland single-house areas for multiple and mixed housing zones has created a generational rift among Aucklanders.

Top public sector CEOs reap at least $50,000 in pay rises and bonuses.

A mould-infested house on the North Shore is being held up by the international press as an example of how heated Auckland's property market has become.

A man employed to test a HNZ property for meth ended up in hospital with severe wounds after being shut in the house's kitchen with two vicious dogs.

Mt Albert residents are questioning the speed of Housing New Zealand's plans for its Asquith Ave site.

Entrenched government disquiet with current urban planning practice is behind a further Productivity Commission inquiry into regulation of urban land.

Forging political consensus on the housing affordability challenge is an elusive task at best, reports Alexander Speirs.

The fall-out from the hot Auckland housing market has created contrasting impressions on the latest Mayoral Scorecard. The housing impact sits at the top and bottom of the rankings.

The government should be allowed to force local authorities to release land for urban development, says the latest work from the Productivity Commission.

Having lived a life on the streets, Sue Henry believes in the right to a home. She's been fighting for state housing tenants since the 1980s.

You can make a standard KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal without the additional top-up from the HomeStart grant. Helen Twose talks about the rules.

Syrian refugees Lilas and Basal Slik have been sleeping soundly this year for the first time in their lives.

Shocked residents of a quiet Porirua street are reeling after the grisly discovery of a neighbour's decomposing body weeks after he died on the floor of his home.

An Auckland woman who says her damp and mouldy state house caused her boy's medical woes has been offered alternative temporary accommodation.

More than 2000 state houses have been upgraded after a coroner found damp and cold conditions may have contributed to a South Auckland toddler's death.

People on the state house waiting list who turn down houses offered to them will be moved down the list, says the government.