The Government has released the latest Homelessness Insights Report and announced a series of actions to reduce the number of people living without shelter, including sleeping rough in New Zealand, Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka say.
"Homelessness is a problem New Zealand has grappled with for a long time. It is a symptom of a dysfunctional housing market and is exacerbated during challenging economic times," Mr Bishop says.
"Census data shows an ongoing trend of increasing homelessness, with 4,122 people living without shelter in 2013, 3,624 people in 2018 and 4,965 in 2023.
"The 2018 to 2023 period showed a 37% increase of people living without shelter despite the large-scale use of Emergency Housing costing well over $1 billion across that period.
"The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development's latest Homelessness Insights Report confirms what frontline organisations like the Auckland City Mission and Salvation Army have been saying: there are too many people in housing need.
"Accurate numbers are difficult to pin down - people without shelter often move around and may avoid engaging with government services - but it's clear we have a real problem.
"The Government takes this seriously. At present, over $550 million is spent annually across a range of programmes run by multiple agencies, including Transitional Housing, Housing First, Rapid Rehousing and many other support services."
"All New Zealanders deserve a warm, dry place to stay, and the Government is determined to make progress on this long-running challenge for New Zealand," Mr Potaka says.
"In the short-term, we've asked officials for advice on further targeted interventions to provide help and support to those living without shelter, including rough sleepers. We've asked for recommendations around better utilisation of existing programmes and existing services, and we are also open to new ideas that will make an enduring difference.
"We've made it clear that officials should engage with frontline providers such as the Auckland City Mission, The Wise Group and the Salvation Army, among others, because they are the organisations working at the frontline of this problem.
"We will not be returning to the previous government's large-scale emergency housing model, which cost over $1 million a day at its peak and was a social disaster. New Zealanders - including people sleeping rough - deserve better than that.
"The Government has an existing review under way of housing support services. There are hundreds of contracts for these services, and the system is complicated and often duplicative. Our aim is to make the system simpler, more effective, and reduce duplication. We want to fund what works.
"We're also looking at how to better support people leaving residential support programmes or prison. Stable housing is critical to successful reintegration and reducing reoffending."
"Our long-term focus is on fixing the fundamentals of our housing market: freeing up land, removing planning barriers, improving infrastructure funding, and giving councils stronger incentives to support housing growth," Mr Bishop says.
"Next year we'll replace the RMA with a new planning system that makes it easier to build the housing and infrastructure New Zealand needs.
"We're also looking at ways to improve the social housing system to ensure it delivers the right homes, in the right places, for the right people. The Government has recently changed Kāinga Ora's funding settings to enable the agency to build more one-bedroom units. About 50 per cent of people on the Housing Register require a one-bedroom unit, but they only make up about 12 per cent of Kāinga Ora's housing stock.
"Homelessness is complex and there are no easy answers, but we're determined to take meaningful actions - like our Priority One policy which has seen more than 2,100 children and their families moved from emergency housing motels into homes."
