Concern over reduced HNZC stock

In this Stuff news piece Phil Twyford said there was room for charities to provide social housing, it was up to the government to increase its stock to meet demands.VIRGINIA FALLON/STUFF

Porirua state houses were advertised for sale in September 2016 before they were taken off the market.

“We have a housing crisis yet we have a big reduction in state homes that hasn’t been offset by community providers.”Last week the Anglican Church revealed that, as of April 30, of the 3500 hectares of Housing NZ land under management, 64ha was vacant – equivalent to about 64 rugby fields.

As the number of Housing NZ properties decreases, social housing waiting lists continue to grow, with 1476 more applications in 2017 than the previous year.

Housing NZ spokesman said, despite having fewer homes, the agency had replaced outdated properties with new houses.

“During 2016/17 Housing NZ delivered a total of 1524 homes, including 1421 social, emergency and transitional homes, and 103 market and affordable homes.”

The number of empty state houses had decreased, with 1592 vacant nationally in June, compared with 2486 a year earlier.

Adams was unavailable for an interview but, in a statement released by her office, said the homes had simply changed ownership and legal contracts meant they had to stay as social housing.

Earlier this year we transferred 1138 social houses to Accessible Properties [owned by IHC] in Tauranga and these remain social houses.”The 3922 figure included approximately 2800 homes transferred to the Tamaki Regeneration Company in Auckland, which were still social houses, she said.

“We spent $2.3 billion on housing support this year, supporting more than 310,000 households. We’ve also committed $354 million for emergency housing the first time permanent funding has been committed, which will provided 8600 emergency places each year.”National had committed to increasing the total number of “social” houses by 6400 within three years, she said.

Porirua City’s state homes were some of the oldest in the country and many needed extensive work to bring them up to modern standard. she said

STATE OF THE STATE HOMES

In the latest report, the Wellington region had 133 fewer state-owned houses in June 2017 than it did in the previous year.