Urgent jobs done on hundreds of state houses in Northland

Ruth Cahill was among hundreds of Kāinga Ora tenants throughout Northland whose requests for urgent repairs were acted upon. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Kāinga Ora has completed more than 300 urgent repairs at State houses throughout Northland during level 4 lockdown, including fixing TV aerials in homes where senior citizens reside.

Over the 33 days between March 26 and April 27, contractors completed 194 urgent repairs and maintenance jobs in Whangārei and 133 in the Far North as part of the more than 9600 jobs throughout their properties around New Zealand.

Ruth Cahill has lived in a State house in Morningside, Whangārei for 20 years and was one of Kāinga Ora's tenants that needed an outside tap repaired.

It was fixed within two hours of her lodging a complaint.

After using the tap about three weeks ago, it would not turn off and she decided to contact Kāinga Ora immediately rather than delay seeking help and wasting more water.

Kāinga Ora national maintenance and upgrade manager Angela Pearce said tradespeople made sure New Zealanders were comfortable and supported in their homes during lockdown, all while adapting their normal work practices to ensure they, our customers and our communities stayed safe.

She said the essential and urgent maintenance completed during alert level 4 covered a wide range of repairs to blocked toilets and drains, temporary fixes to broken windows, and locksmiths helping people back into their homes if they had access issues.

"We also sometimes fixed TV aerials in places like our complexes for older people or residential housing facilities, where large numbers of customers needed to remain informed but didn't have access to the internet.

"All of this work is continuing now we are in alert level 3, and we're looking forward to the added benefit of helping more people get back to work, to stimulate local economies while keeping with our mission to be a world-class public housing landlord," she said earlier this week.

Pearce said ensuring homes were safe for customers was paramount for Kāinga Ora and, even before New Zealand went into lockdown, their planning was well advanced with its maintenance partners.

She said comprehensive health and safety checks that aligned with Ministry of Health guidelines were and continued to be in place, to be implemented both prior to and upon arrival at a customer's home.