More people living in emergency housing for longer, some for up to two years

Emergency housing is supposed to be short-term for those most in need, but some residents have now lived in motels for two years or longer - with no immediate end in sight. Photo / Nick Monro

By Jane Patterson of RNZ

Emergency housing is supposed to be short-term for those most in need, but some residents have now lived in motels for two years or longer - with no immediate end in sight.

While it puts a roof over the head of some of New Zealand's most vulnerable, not all are safe from violence, gang activity and intimidation. Furthermore, taxpayer dollars continue to pour into moteliers' pockets with the bill topping $1 billion since Labour took office in 2017.

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said the Government was still working to reverse the housing deficit created by the previous National government. Criticisms now being levelled by its MPs were "incredibly disingenuous" and showed a "shocking level of hypocrisy", she said.

Emergency housing was put in place by National to tackle the homeless crisis; its use skyrocketed during the pandemic and has now become a long-term option for many.

The average stay in 2018 was three weeks, but that's now blown out to more than 20 weeks, based on information provided to National housing spokesman Chris Bishop.

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni says the Labour government is working to reverse a housing deficit created by the previous National government. Photo / RNZ

He described the current state of emergency housing as "a total social and moral disaster for New Zealand"; he had "real concerns" about the safety of some residents, both from what people living there tell him and from media reports.

"The simple reality is we do not want children growing up living in motels," Bishop said. "We are now caught in the situation where there are children being born in emergency housing; some young kids out there who have no other life other than living in a motel room. That is an appalling state of affairs."

National Party housing spokesman Chris Bishop. File photo. Photo / Angus Dreaver

Police do not track how many gang members are in emergency housing.

Nor do they have an information sharing agreement with the social development ministry (MSD), saying they do not believe the "public policy justification" would override privacy.

Bishop said the fact agencies were not doing more to keep an eye on what was happening was "extremely concerning".

"People are living in squalor, in misery and living in fear of people they're often living next door to ... as we know that there are gang members present there, and we know that that's a big driver of criminal activity".

Police Minister Chris Hipkins, who took up the portfolio in June, said it was something he would look at.

"The emergency housing situation is a relatively fluid one, it can cover a whole spectrum of people with a variety of different needs.

Police did have "quite good intelligence on who's living, where, in some of those emergency housing areas anyway," Hipkins said.

Police reports commissioned in 2021 highlighted family violence as a particular problem. A new complaints system for residents has been established by MSD, but grants are still being handed out to moteliers, largely with no obligation to provide safe and decent accommodation.

Sepuloni said grant numbers were coming down, albeit slowly.

"It's a slow decline, but that's still progress in my mind.

"The real problem here is the lack of housing, and we say this over and over again, but the way in which we can best resolve the emergency housing situation is by having enough homes for whānau", she said.

Houses are being built but not fast enough to meet demand, with the public wait list now more than 26,500.

"This goes back to the housing crisis that we inherited," Sepuloni said.

"We are building the houses and all the evidence is there to suggest that that's happening, but the build of those houses was overdue.

"We picked up that challenge, we're running with it, we're doing it as quickly as we can, but this is a result of decades of neglect."

An action plan has been launched in Rotorua but no substantial changes have been made elsewhere.

In the Budget in May, $335 million was tagged to review and redesign the whole system. Sepuloni would not give anything more away about how that might be spent, saying a plan was due to go before Cabinet in the next few months.