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26 October 2017
Community housing sector ready to increase social and affordable homes
New Zealand’s community housing sector welcomes the new Labour-led coalition Government.
“We are ready to partner to see ‘all New Zealanders well-housed’,” says Scott Figenshow, CE of Community Housing Aotearoa.
“Congratulations to Phil Twyford in the new role as Minister of Housing and Urban Development and Carmel Sepuloni as Minister for Social Development.
“We look forward to working with the whole team – as what we achieve together is greater than what any of us can do alone.
“The new Government have ambitious goals in the housing area. We have a proven track record of delivering quality social and affordable housing,” says Scott Figenshow.
“That means our nation will achieve these goals much more quickly when community housing providers and Housing New Zealand both have access to the investment.”
“And we’re ready to do this.”
On Tuesday a large group of the sector met in Wellington to review how they could work with the new Government to help them meet their objective of ensuring all Kiwis can live in warm, dry homes.
“NZ’s community housing provider’s proven track record in affordable housing speaks for itself.
“We’ve developed and tested innovative housing solutions such as rent-to-buy, shared ownership and assisted rental, through-out New Zealand,” says Scott Figenshow.
NZ’s community housing groups say they have a significant role to play because their housing is regulated and they are experienced social landlords.
“There was a period of three years of capital investment when we were delivering more net new homes than Housing New Zealand.”
“And the secret to how we’ve managed to deliver as many homes as we have – is capital.
NZ’s community housing sector say the new Labour-led Government’s commitment to 1000 social homes and 10,000 affordable homes a year is a good start. Continuing both the Income Related Rent Subsidy and adding direct capital investment will speed up this delivery, they say.
“We call on the new Government to fast track a ten-year pipeline of funding certainty within its first budget.”
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