Public housing increasing in Northland after long decline

Melissa Coffey and then five-week-old Nakaia Brown-Lauder are among the new tenants at a Kāinga Ora housing development that opened on Whangārei’s Puriri Park Rd late last year. Photo / Tania Whyte

Northland’s public housing stock is increasing again after years of decline, but the number of homes are still behind those available a decade ago.

Figures for the number of state houses in Northland over the past 10 years show public housing stocks slumped to a low in 2017 but are now creeping back up again.

Despite a recent flurry of building projects the total number of public houses in the North — 2282 as of the end of February this year — is lower than the June 2012 figure of 2338.

The number of public homes hit a low of 2179 in 2017 but has been increasing since then by between one and 32 a year.

In the first eight months of the 2022-23 financial year, another 24 public homes were added across the North.

Going by the number of new projects revealed in recent months — including last month’s announcement of a 95-home complex in Maunu, Northland’s biggest-ever social housing development — the increase is likely to accelerate in coming years as new developments are completed.

The public housing situation is worst in the Far North, which also has some of New Zealand’s highest deprivation.

Anecdotal reports suggest the number of families living in poor conditions has increased since the Covid pandemic, due to people returning to whānau land after losing jobs in the main centres or across the Tasman.

The figures, obtained from Kāinga Ora (formerly Housing NZ), show the number of public homes in the Far North decreased from 807 in 2012 to a low of 677 in 2019 — a decline of 16 per cent.

As of the end of February 2023, the tally had increased slightly to 684 but was still well down on 10 years earlier.

Kaipara follows a similar trajectory with the number of public homes dropping from 134 in 2012 to 117 in 2017, then remaining almost static with a small increase to 119 this year.

The Whangārei district is better served and now has more public housing than it did 10 years ago.

From a total of 1397 in 2012, the number of public homes in Northland’s most populous district bottomed out at 1377 in 2017 but had climbed to 1479 by the end of February this year.

Doug Karanga jnr and Doug Karanga snr moved into public housing in Kaikohe last week after living in a car and emergency accommodation. Photo / Peter de Graaf

The decline of public housing stock coincides with the National government of 2008-17 and its policy of divesting state homes.

The total number of state houses available in Northland shrank by 159 in the five years to 2017.

The Labour-led government since then pledged more public housing but was beset by a series of well-publicised housing failures and struggled to get much built until recently.

The past month has seen major projects announced in Whangārei and Kerikeri, and new developments opened in Kaikohe and Kerikeri.

Kāinga Ora Te Tai Tokerau director Jeff Murray said the agency was looking to build more warm, dry homes for Northlanders in need.

“One of the ways we are doing this is by making better use of the land we own by replacing older public homes with more homes that better meet the needs of our customers today,” he said.

“On average, where we remove one house, we replace it with about three homes to make better use of space. In areas of high demand, we may also remove several houses and replace them with terraced housing or apartments.”

In the current financial year Kāinga Ora had so far delivered 24 homes, six in the Far North and 18 in the Whangārei District.

Another 64 homes would be delivered by the end of June 2023, he said. Of those, 25 would be in the Far North, two in Kaipara and 37 in Whangārei.

In the following year, ending June 2024, Murray expected more than 200 new public homes across Northland.

If those targets are met Northland will have more state homes by the middle of this year than it did in 2012, and by mid-2024 the total will be around 2545.

The figures also show the number of houses leased by Kāinga Ora for use as public housing is continuing to decline. At the end of February, the agency leased 38 homes in the Far North, 15 in Kaipara and 17 in Whangārei.

Some recent Northland public housing announcements/developments:

February:

■ Kainga Ora proposed a 12-apartment, three-storey walk-up on Clark Rd, Kerikeri.

March:

■ Housing charity Habitat for Humanity opened a 10-home development in central Kerikeri, its biggest community housing project to date in Northland.

■ Kainga Ora announced it would spend just over $26 million to buy 35 newly built homes in the Whangārei suburb of Tikipunga to meet the urgent need for public housing.

■ Housing Minister Megan Woods announced plans for a $73 million project on the Casa Blanca Motel site on Kauika Rd, off Maunu Rd, with 89 three-level walk-up apartments and six homes.