High rents push people out of New Zealand’s most expensive city: Porirua

Porirua rents are heading north and are now the most expensive in the country, according to new figures released this week.

But also to the north is the growth of homeless people and people living in their cars, the number of Porirua hotels and motels crammed with desperate people looking for emergency housing and people struggling increasingly moving to the coast in looking for somewhere, anywhere, to live.

Porirua has always been a place where working-class people could afford to live. . . have a house big enough for your whanau, a backyard, ”said Jasmine Taankink, coordinator of Housing Action Porirua.

“It wasn’t a shock to me, I live here, so I’ve seen this, but it’s really disturbing. Now we see people being pushed further and further, people who still work in Wellington having to live in places like Ōtaki and Levin.

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Trade Me’s latest rental price index showed prices increased 3 percent nationwide in the year through September, from $ 495 to $ 510.

But they went through the roof in the area covered by the Porirua City Hall, from north Tawa to Paekakariki. Figures from Trade Me showed that the median rent in the city increased 25 percent in the past year, from $ 500 to $ 625, making it the most expensive place to rent in the country.

Trade Me Property spokesperson Logan Mudge described the increase as an “incredible leap.” Porirua pushed Wellington and North Shore into second place with $ 600 a week, with Auckland, yes, Auckland, somewhat behind at $ 550 for their average weekly rent.

Mudge blamed high demand and a lack of supply for the increase in Porirua rents. He also highlighted the impact of Covid and the increase in the number of people working from home who no longer need a house in the city.

“This is the story throughout the Wellington region,” he said. “It is very expensive if you are looking for a Wellington rental right now.”

For Taankink it is less of a story, more of an unfolding tragedy. People were “afraid” of not being able to find a place to live.

“It wasn’t a surprise to me, I live here so I’ve seen this, but it’s really disturbing,” he said.

For many people, the new median of $ 625 per week is “total income,” he said.

“We know that our motels and hotels in Porirua are full of emergency housing … you can see people sleeping in the streets, you can see people sleeping in their cars.”

Sadly, it’s going to get worse.

Local agencies in Wellington, Wairarapa and Horowhenua believe they will need to find homes for another 200,000 people over the next 30 years.

Many of them will want to settle in Porirua, says the city’s mayor, Anita Baker.

“There are people coming here from all over New Zealand,” he said. “I have spoken with people from Auckland and Christchurch this week who are moving here; They say ‘wow, this is a secret city. . . center of the region, the water, they just love it. “

That’s great for the city’s image, but lousy for the 600-plus people who live in motels and other emergency shelter.

State housing provider Kāinga Ora plans to build some 2,000 homes in Porirua East, but will need to demolish 1,200 to do so, which will mean even fewer options for tenants.

Taankink believes that a third of those new homes will sell on the open market, at prices higher than most buyers.

Baker wants them reserved for the people of Porirua, under a rent-to-own without deposit scheme. “I don’t want people to leave here.”

That means all roads lead to the capital for Baker, Taankink and others concerned about Porirua’s future.

“I was walking around Kenepuru Hospital and saw some little pictures of what Porirua used to be like, and little stories,” Taankink said. “And at one point in Aotearoa they were building around 30,000 state houses a year.

“That’s the kind of thing that has to happen to calm down. We need really good state houses, and we need a lot more. “

Porirua’s difficult rental market

The broken front door was a bad start, the broken glass on the floor was a worrying medium. But it was the overwhelming smell that signaled the end.

But $ 400 a week doesn’t get you much in Porirua, and the new median weekly rent of $ 625 is out of reach for many.

That includes a single Maori homecare worker “not too far in her 60s” who doesn’t want to give her name because she feels it will bring trouble at the motel she has been living in as emergency accommodation for the past 20 months.

And he won’t let you rent that $ 400 place with the broken door.

“The smell when I walked in, it was just … I turned around and walked out,” he said. “It was a little wet, times 50.”

In a market with few options, that was one of the few properties for $ 400 or less.

They are oddities. Janine Barrett had one of those. But she is very happy to leave him.

The Wellington office clerk this week delivered her ad about the $ 385-a-week “little two-bed s..t box” she rents in Whitby.

There was “no insulation, no heating, and no exhaust fan in the kitchen,” he said.

He also had to put up with “violent” neighbors who “scared me, wrote me notes and cut off my power when they left”.

“It’s a good example of what I was willing to put up with just being able to rent in Porirua.”