When the Government says it has reduced the number of people in emergency housing, what it means is it is stopping people from accessing it in the first place.

“The Government isn’t providing people somewhere to live, despite what National Ministers would have us believe. Every new Kāinga Ora house has been funded and built by the previous government,” Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said.

“The Government hasn’t funded any more Kāinga Ora builds of its own and has drastically reduced funding to Community Housing Providers. So, to stem the flow of people needing housing it has changed the rules to make it harder to get into emergency housing.

“The need hasn’t reduced, but applications have. Last year emergency housing averaged 8,660 applications a month. That’s dropped to under 4,000 per month now. People don’t tend to apply if they know they won’t qualify under the new rules. The rate of applications being declined has also almost tripled from 3% a month in the 2023 calendar year to 10% for August 2024.

“What New Zealanders will see is more people living in cars and homelessness increasing, it’s as simple as that.

“This is just National returning to type. We can’t forget the last National Government ended up with 1,500 fewer public homes than it started with and sucked out $576 million in dividends from Housing New Zealand.

“If National delivered additional homes at the rate Labour did, we would get much closer to solving the housing crisis. Instead, they’ve cut $1.5 billion from public house building and maintenance funding, and reduced people’s ability to ask for help.

“This Government is much more interested in cutting costs than helping people into a home,” Kieran McAnulty said.

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