“Labour has catastrophically failed in housing,” he said.
“Where Labour has failed, National will deliver.”
Associate spokesman Tama Potaka said National would increase the number of social housing places funded by the Government and work much more closely with Community Housing Providers (CHPs) and other providers.
“CHPs have been marginalised by a Labour government more interested in building the giant bureaucratic monolithic monopoly that is Kāinga Ora.
“CHPs tend to be more nimble, more agile and provide better services to tenants. They are a vital part of the solution to our housing crisis.”
National’s plan would give CHPs access to both Government capital and operational funding for new housing places, ending what he called the “institutional and political bias towards Kāinga Ora”.
“We will also be much more willing to sign long-term contracts with CHPs, allowing them to access finance for new builds.”
Bishop said National was also determined to end the use of emergency housing motels.
National would prioritise families who have been in emergency housing for more than 12 weeks at the front of the queue for a social house. Currently, nearly 500 applicants have spent over a year in emergency accommodation - typically motels - including 156 for over two years.
National would also tighten eligibility criteria for emergency motels. Families receiving emergency housing grants would be required to use those grants in the area they are currently living unless there is a good reason not to.
It would also create a Social Impact Bond through the Social Investment Fund to partner with providers who could shift families out of emergency housing into secure homes in the short term – and keep them there in the long term.
An initial bond of $50 million would be established from unspent funding for Labour’s Emergency Housing over three years.
National says it will also reduce the flow of people needing public homes in the first place with policies to drive down rents and build more homes.
National will also reform Kāinga Ora, directing it to consult and engage more meaningfully with communities and evict anti-social tenants.
It will also commission an independent review into Kāinga Ora within 100 days of taking office.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins called National’s plans “vague promises”, with no additional funding attached and pointing out there was a net reduction in state houses in National’s previous nine years in government.
He said National had stricter criteria to get onto the waiting list when it was in government, saying Labour expanded it which is partially why the waitlist has grown so large.
Labour had increased funding for community housing providers from $95m when taking office in 2016/17 to $535m last year. The number of providers had grown from 43 to 74 in that time.
Over 13,000 public homes had been added under Labour, including just over 7700 by community housing providers and about 5700 by Kāinga Ora.
Hipkins said there was another 4000 under construction and 3000 more already funded in this year’s Budget.
“I think what the National Party is basically saying they’re going to do is they’re going to get the public house waiting list down by just randomly deleting people from the list, which is what they did last time.
“That doesn’t actually fix the housing crisis, pretending the homeless people and people who haven’t got adequate housing don’t exist isn’t the way to fix the housing crisis.
“If National had built state houses at the same rate we are we wouldn’t be in this problem.”
Hipkins said he agreed more needed to be done to move people out of emergency accommodation faster.
“But simply booting people out of motels when they’ve got nowhere to go isn’t actually going to solve the problem.”
