Families bringing up children in motel emergency housing has been a growing problem for New Zealand society in recent years. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Getting more than 1000 children into homes and out of motels is just the start of drastically reducing emergency housing, the government says.
But a housing advocate said cutting down on emergency housing simply means more families homeless and living out of cars, and the Labour Party said the government was making it harder for families in need to access emergency housing.
Associate Minister of Housing Tama Potaka says new figures show a 32 percent reduction in the number of families living in motels. And that more than 1000 children had been rehoused in homes by Kainga Ora or community organisations since the government came to power.
Potaka said there had been a snowballing problem where families were staying in emergency housing long-term, when it had been intended as a stop-gap for brief periods. That meant children were growing up in motels, and he had heard stories of families having to move to eight different hotels in two years, which caused "major disruption" for their children.
The government has set a target to reduce the number of families in emergency housing by 75 percent by 2030.
After enquiries from RNZ, the Ministry of Social Development last week confirmed that from 26 August the eligibility settings and obligations for those in need of emergency housing would change.
Potaka said while it was early days, the government would be working harder to reduce the numbers of families in motels further.
"I think it's pretty clear to us that having a warm, safe and dry home is critical for health and well-being - not only for young people, but their parents and grandparents, and whānau members as well," he said.
"We're pretty dedicated to making sure that we do whatever we can to accelerate tamariki and their whānau, to come out of hotels and motels."
Despite a current pause at Kainga Ora on building homes, the agency would build 'many more' in future years, Potaka said.
"There is a pause on new developments whilst we wait for the turnaround plans to be presented back to the ministers from the Kainga Ora board.
"But I have no doubt in my mind there is a lot of mahi that needs to be done in order to get that turnaround plan presented."
But a housing advocate said reduce the number of families using emergency housing motels further was not sustainable
Canterbury housing advocate Kevin Murray said need for emergency housing was growing, due to the high price of rents.
"There's going to more and more people put back out onto the streets, there's going to be more families living out of cars - that's the reality of the government's decisions."
The reality was that housing providers need more money to build more houses, he said.
Last week, Murray told RNZ people in emergency housing had reported they were living in fear of eviction because of anticipated 'tough' new rules for people using the service.
While the Community Law organisation said it had advised the Ministry of Social Development to expect an increase homelessness if new rules were introduced which it believed were vulnerable to being used subjectively.
Earlier figures showed that about 4300 people - half of whom were children - were in emergency housing in June, with much of that in motels, but within the month grants for emergency housing took a sudden drop by $7 million.
Labour Party housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said the reduction in the number of people in emergency housing was because it had been made too hard for families to access when they need it.
"Make it harder for people to get into emergency housing - where are they going to go? They're certainly not going to the houses that the government are building, because the government put a stop to it.
"They're either going to go into cars, which was why emergency housing was created in the first place, or they're going to go and stay with family in overcrowded conditions.
"They'll be able to reach that 75 percent because they're not letting people in. It's unhealthy and unsafe, the only real honest way to reduce demand is by funding social housing."
More questions needed to be asked about where people do go instead, McAnulty said.
The previous Labour coalition government had increased the country's housing pool, which had also helped lower the need for emergency housing now, he said, but the current National-led coalition government had done "nothing" for housing supply.
He believed the way to address the problem long term rested on building more homes.
"They're showing a fair bit of gall by claiming that 'yes, this is the way forward', when they have scrapped $1.5 billion out of the housing budget. Kainga Ora aren't building any more houses, and they've reduced the number of money available to community housing providers."