Samantha Motion: House builds are slow - we need a living wage to fix rising rents

Can workers afford to live? For some, the answer is no. Photo / Getty Images

Nearly $3 million a week.

This shocking figure is what the Government is spending weekly helping people in the Bay of Plenty pay their rent, board or mortgage.

Tens of thousands of people are using this supplement to stay abreast of the payments that keep a roof over their heads.

People at the coalface of the housing crunch in this region say increasingly, people seeking the accommodation supplement are working full-time.

That's the most alarming aspect to me.

When people are working 40 hours a week and still can't afford a core cost of living there is a kink in the chain, something wrong in the order of our society.

No doubt for most people in this deep financial hole it's a combination of stresses rather than a single cause.

But there was one factor the experts we interviewed raised repeatedly, and that was the rising cost of rent.

Median rents are $580 in Tauranga, $465 in Rotorua.

In all these areas, a scarcity of rentals has been reported regularly.

On Wednesday, Trade Me had just over 180 rentals listed for Tauranga. For a city with a population edging over 150,000 that doesn't seem like a lot. Rotorua, with 77,300 people, had just over 100, so not much better.

In places like the Bay of Plenty that will continue to be attractive places to move to, it's hard to imagine rents coming down by any meaningful margin anytime soon.

There would need to be a swift and significant rise in the rate of house builds, I've seen little to give me much confidence of supply catching up with demand in this area in the next few years.

The minimum wage in New Zealand rose to $20 an hour this month. After tax that's about $660 a week.

After rent there are food, power, transport, communication and a variety of other regular and unexpected expenses. And with consumer costs expected to rise, the squeeze will continue.

A picture emerges of how a person working full-time could wind up unable to live off their wage in this region.

The minimum wage was a step in the right direction, but what we really need is to see employers challenge themselves to pay their employees the living wage.

That has been independently set at a minimum of $22.75 an hour.

That extra 3.5 per cent over the Government-mandated minimum might be the difference between a worker keeping up with housing costs or needing a Government top-up.