$24.4m more for Auckland social housing

The funding is in addition to the $120.1 million announced in Budget 2016 for new social housing places in Auckland.

“Our Government is taking the housing issue seriously and is committed to increasing supply through community housing providers. Those houses are coming through the pipeline but in the meantime this money will see more and faster development of social housing through CHPs, either in new builds or new leases,” Mrs Bennett says.

“We need more one- and two-bedroom and large social houses and that is what we are targeting with this extra funding. While others may still be stuck at the point of merely debating the scale of our country’s housing issues, our Government has identified a barrier to more social housing and has fixed it.”

The $24 million funding means that:

CHPs building new social housing will be able to receive an upfront grant of up to 50 per cent of the value of the development, or;

Once the development is built a weekly grant of up to 50 per cent of market rent on top of the current rental subsidies the Government provides, or;

They can receive a combination of both, up to the equivalent level of funding provided by either the upfront funding or weekly subsidy alone.

CHPs providing social housing in a property leased from the private market can also receive a grant of up to 50 per cent of market rent, on top of the subsidised rent they receive.

Read more here.

Here is the CHA press release in response to this announcement.

$24m Ak investment sept 2016.pdf

Paula Bennett discusses this new funding with Lisa Owen on The Nation here on 10 September.