Housing crisis as need for state help balloons

Housing New Zealand has conceded it can no longer find homes for all the families with the most severe housing needs in Auckland immediately.

The Auckland waiting list of "priority A" applicants, described as having "severe and persistent housing needs that must be addressed immediately", has ballooned from 27 to 201 in the past two years as the corporation struggles to house families living in caravan parks and boarding houses, sometimes after losing jobs in the recession.

Auckland operations director Celia Patrick said it now took an average of 31 days to house priority A applicants in the region, and 98 days to house priority B applicants with "significant and persistent housing need". The regional priority B queue has grown in two years from 1805 to 2435.

Another 3046 Aucklanders classed as priorities C and D now have virtually no chance of a state house.

"There might be the odd C from time to time," Ms Patrick said.

South Auckland is worst hit. Its priority A waiting list has leapt from nine in October 2007 to 39 in October last year and 96 last month - almost a third of the national total of 304.

The number of accommodation supplements paid to people in private sector housing has also jumped by 27 per cent nationally, and by 29 per cent in the Auckland region, in the past 16 months.

The subsidies were being claimed at the end of last month by 108,265 households in Auckland, a quarter of all homes in the region, and 203,083 households, or a fifth of all homes, in the rest of the country.

Emergency housing services said the state housing shortage stemmed from a slowdown in the expansion of state house numbers from an average of 1000 a year under the Labour Government until last year to a target of 1000 over the next three years, or 330 a year, under National.

"It's good that the building programme is continuing but it's just not enough," said David Zussman of Monte Cecilia House in Mangere.

"We are seeing the pressure in overcrowding. We can only tell from our workers that they are seeing more and more families doubling up, sometimes two or three families in a house and living in garages."

Mangere Budgeting Service manager Darryl Evans said the waiting lists did not tell the full story because Housing NZ had introduced a new "options and advice" service giving applicants the option of private rentals in eight areas nationally, including Panmure, Onehunga and Manurewa in Auckland.

"They are shown this little presentation, for example, 'If you want a state house you may be on the waiting list for four years, if you go for private housing we can house you tomorrow,"' he said.

The scheme is due to be extended to the whole country between next March and July. But Mr Evans said many families helped into private rentals defaulted on the rent payments within months.

Manurewa Labour MP George Hawkins said many families doubling up with relatives were also overstayers whose work permits had been cancelled because of the recession so they would not qualify for Housing NZ. He said 3000 to 5000 of the country's 30,000 overstayers were in Manurewa.

"A lot of people have had their permits revoked and they go into hiding," he said.

Ms Patrick said the increase in the priority A queue partly reflected a new Housing NZ policy of working proactively with caravan parks and boarding houses to house families in urgent need.

She said the number of houses available had also dropped because turnover had slowed.