New Zealand / Politics

Record number of people waiting for social housing

19:57 pm on 3 December 2020

The social housing waitlist has hit a record high, with nearly 22,000 applicants on the register.

A new social housing unit is built in Raureka, Hastings. Photo: RNZ/ Tom Kitchin

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD)'s September public housing update released today showed the number of people on the waitlist jumped by just over 1000 on the previous month.

More than 19,000 of those waiting for a house fall into the priority A category, which is people in the most need.

The figures showed 2200 people went on to the housing register in September, the vast majority of them falling into the priority A category.

Another 300 applied to transfer to a new state house and 650 people were housed in September.

The update showed the median time to house people on the housing register was 182 days.