Housing crisis is now ‘housing chaos’ – emergency housing provider

By Charlie Dreaver of RNZ

The country has weathered a housing crisis and has now reached “housing chaos,” according to an emergency housing provider.

Monte Cecilia Housing Trust CEO Bernie Smith walks through the trust’s Māngere site as children run and bike under a large tree.

It’s one of the few remnants of what used to be here before the site underwent a $ 12 million update in 2018, of which more than $ 8 million came from a government loan.

But Smith said Monte Cecilia should never have been allowed to grow that much over the years.

“In 2016, we had 30 properties, today we have 400 properties, we have 300 families waiting for a house and it saddens me, especially when there are children involved.”

The public housing registry has more than tripled from 5,844 in September 2017 to 19,438 in July 2020.

Smith said families spend 60 to 80 percent of their household income on rent, forcing many people out of the private rental market.

He said that the situation had now gone beyond a crisis.

“In fact, it has turned into real estate chaos and we know that the previous government wouldn’t call it a crisis, they just called it real estate pressure.

“When the Labor Party wanted to be elected and they called it a crisis, we called it a crisis, but it has gone beyond the crisis.”

He noted that the Coalition Government had introduced Green’s progressive homeownership plan and had delivered over 3,000 public premises, but it was not enough to meet demand.

“We know that waiting records are growing at more than 2,000 per quarter,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Pt England, a comprehensive support service called Island Child is helping families and young people recover after losing their home.

Danielle Bergin was busy preparing dinner and doing laundry and odd jobs to help keep the place running smoothly.

She established Island Child after experiencing homelessness firsthand, and now there are enough houses and small buildings to house up to 12 families at a time.

One of the newer residents is a 19-year-old who wishes to remain anonymous and who moved in about a week ago with her 2-year-old son.

He had to drop his two-year rental, due to the fact that it was so damaged by floods and wet that the landlord felt it was no longer safe enough to live in.

Attempts to find a new rental have been unsuccessful.

“It’s just that they see that I’m on a WINZ benefit, plus I’m still young and things like that and they just reject it, they just say no.

“Oh my gosh, I’ve been to a ton of houses and they’ve all been rejected.”

Bergin said the ability to find private rentals was becoming increasingly difficult.

“They [property agents] He used to tell me to choose Dani, who he would like to be his beneficiary family.

“Ninety percent of my results were private and 10 percent were state and now it has been reversed,” he said.

Those who come to Island Child receive warm, dry, clean and safe accommodation.

However, Bergin said the same cannot be said for some of the motels where families are being placed.

“When you walk into some of them, they’re dirty and the net curtains are black and the mold and just the smell.

“We had to bring a mother here who got a motel unit in Ellerslie and opened the drawers and there were the used methamphetamine packages, the plastic packages.”

There were 6,01 emergency housing special needs grants in July, compared to 6,153 in June, the majority of which went to motel stays.

But despite the challenges, Bergin said that at least the government listened and that now most of Island Child’s costs were covered by a government contract.

While the last few years under a national government almost ruined it, he said.

“When he found out that National had won [in 2014]I walked for two days in a daze, I had never prayed so much in my life.

“I was thinking, ‘how the hell am I going to survive another three years, we’ve done six, how am I going to survive another three years and keep the entity going?'”

But national leader Judith Collins defended her party’s record.

“I thought we did really well with community housing providers, particularly in places like Masterton and I saw really good work in Auckland as well,” he said.

He said his party wanted to go further with special housing areas and would repeal and replace the RMA if elected.

Labor Party housing spokeswoman Megan Woods said that under the Labor Party there would be 18,000 new public and transitional housing (as of 2017) by 2024.

“We are building more pubs than any government since the 1970s and that is something we can be very proud of.

“On the other side of that ledger we see a waiting list that is growing and one of the things that I find extraordinarily frustrating is that the previous decade saw us end up with 1,500 fewer houses than the National Party had.”

No CGT drives house prices up – Greens

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson wanted public housing and non-profit rentals to take priority next term, but he also wanted to get to the root of the problem.

“It is a real bummer that we are not taxing capital gains from asset wealth that is part of what continues to drive home prices soaring and unaffordable,” he said.

She said that because Ardern scrapped a capital gains tax, her party was now pushing for a wealth tax.

But Smith had a simple message for whoever forms the next government.

“There is a lot of blame, ‘it was the previous government, it was this government’, the homeless don’t care what government it is, they need a home.”