The public housing waitlist in Rotorua has continued to climb. Photo / File
The public housing waitlist in Rotorua has continued to climb. Photo / File
Demand for public housing in Rotorua has skyrocketed over the course of a year with the waitlist for a home in the city rising more than 25 per cent in that time.
The information comes as part of a new report showing the Bay of Plenty region has the highestdemand for public housing in the country.
The Salvation Army's State of the Nation report compared the public housing register with the number of public tenancies and found the Bay of Plenty, together with the West Coast and Tasman area, had the biggest demand for public housing.
The report referenced a Ministry Housing and Urban Development report for the quarter ending last September which showed 999 applicants were on the housing register for 2721 public housing tenancies across the Bay of Plenty.
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Salvation Army social policy analyst and report co-author Ronji Tanielu. Photo / File
In the Rotorua District, the waitlist increased by 28.2 per cent to 391.
In contrast, the Tauranga City waitlist increased by just 3.3 per cent to 344 and in the Western Bay of Plenty it decreased by 4.4 per cent.
Salvation Army social policy analyst and report co-author Ronji Tanielu said the figures indicated the public housing stock was not enough to meet growing demand.
He said challenges in this area could be addressed if community housing providers were supported in providing affordable and suitable housing.
Te Tuinga Whānau executive director Tommy Wilson. Photo / File
The regional manager for Lifewise Rotorua and Bay of Plenty, Haehaetu Barrett, said there was a "very high demand" for affordable housing in Rotorua.
This shortfall affected the Housing First programme provider in its work providing wrap-around services to clients in homes.
The regional manager for Lifewise Rotorua and Bay of Plenty, Haehaetu Barrett. Photo / File
The service had been running for nearly 10 months and would be working to increase the amount of housing available for chronic homeless and people in poverty, Barrett said.
Tauranga-based Te Tuinga Whānau executive director Tommy Wilson said the increased demand was "totally in-sync" with what the organisation saw at the coalface.
"There's increased rents and more people coming to Tauranga in search of a new life."
Susan Timmins and Sharlene Karena-Newman of Housing New Zealand, now Kāinga Ora, last year outside the new state houses being built in Fordlands. Photo / File
A Ministry of Housing and Urban Development spokesman said 44 new community housing places had been delivered or were planned for the Bay of Plenty in 2019 and 2020.
Last year, Kāinga Ora, then known as Housing New Zealand, started construction on 42 new state houses in Rotorua. Most of the units went into the Fordlands area of Rotorua and consisted of one-, two-, three- and six-bedroom houses.
Kāinga Ora area manager Sharlene Karena-Newman said it had 850 homes in Rotorua and Tauranga.
In Rotorua, the construction that began last year would ultimately deliver 67 new homes, with 29 already built, a further 36 to be completed by this June and the final two by this August.
