Whanganui emergency housing in crisis

Chloe Sharrock was happy to move into her Housing New Zealand house last year. PHOTO/ FILE

By the end of March 66 Whanganui families or individuals urgently needed help with housing - but no Housing New Zealand properties were available.

Winter is coming and it's a tough time for people who are looking to rent houses.

As Monday's Chronicle reported, the availability of rentals is at its lowest level in 20 years. Agents can have 40 people turn up to view one available property.

Whanganui District Council's pensioner housing is full, the Wanganui Housing Trust's two emergency accommodation houses are always full and the Salvation Army has yet to find the seven houses it would like to offer.

At March 31 Housing New Zealand owned 561 properties in Whanganui. There were 15 empty, but none available to tenants. The empty houses were all under repair, being decontaminated from methamphetamine or otherwise unavailable.

Of the 66 people or families who wanted them, 54 needed immediate help and were "at risk". The other 12 had serious, significant and persistent need.

In the three months to January the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) gave people in the Whanganui District $5,241 in 19 emergency housing special needs grants. It enabled them to stay in hotels, motels or emergency accommodation from other providers.

That's not a lot of money, compared to the overspend in Goverment's national emergency housing budget. For the same three months $2 million was budgeted, for 1400 grants, but $7.7 million was spent, in 8860 grants.

New Zealand's housing situation is changing. In 1991 74 per cent of people owned their own houses. By 2015 the percentage had dropped to 64 per cent. The number of people renting went up from 23 per cent to 32 per cent over the same time.

And rents have risen, especially in Auckland and Wellington, but also in Whanganui.

Major Glenn Anderson, from Whanganui's Salvation Army, said Government is giving his organisation funding to supply seven emergency houses and look after the tenants. The Salvation Army will get a rental subsidy, plus a full-time social worker and part-time tenancy manager.

Clients will live in the accommodation for 12-14 weeks and transition to longer term accommodation, supported by the organisation for a further three months.

The Salvation Army will be expected to produce outcomes out of this new scheme.

"It's an experiment between us and them. No-one is sure how it's all going to work out," Mr Anderson said.

The rental situation is so tight that he hasn't been able to source any houses so far, but with help from a national company funded by MSD he expects to have three or four by the end of May.

Housing New Zealand is to add another 20 state houses to its Whanganui total, and has no properties for sale at present. MSD housing deputy CEO Scott Gallacher said Housing New Zealand is aiming to have 6,400 more properties nationwide, about half of them one-bedroom places.

It's also planning to provide another 2200 emergency housing places, some of them through groups like the Salvation Army.

"It's an ambitious goal, but we're focused on delivering these extra places," Mr Gallacher said.

Mr Anderson commended the government for these efforts, but said they have been slow to get started.