Housing Minister Chris Bishop's $140m community housing promise is yet to be fulfilled. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The government is taking far too long to allocate the 1500 social homes it announced nine months ago and the hold up is stalling desperately-needed homes, says a community housing provider.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced $140 million for community housing providers (CHPs) to deliver the homes at Wellington's Dwell Housing Trust in May last year.
Dwell chief executive Elizabeth Lester said her organisation's initial excitement that day had been overshadowed by frustration as time dragged on.
"We have had very little in the way of information since then, so there's been little transparency from the Ministry of Housing and Urban development," she said.
"We're just frustrated by the amount of time that's being taken to allocate those 1500 places," she said.
Dwell was ready to build new homes to help the more than 20,000 people on the social housing waitlist, but it needed security from the government to do so, said Lester.
CHPs borrow and fundraise their build costs, but they can only push on with their developments if they have a government contract to receive the Income Related Rent Subsidy (IRRS), which tops up tenants' rent to market rates.
The allocation of the 1500 IRRS places is what providers like Dwell are waiting for.
Dwell had two developments ready to go in Lower Hutt and Newtown that would see 36 new homes - but they had stalled because it had not heard back from the housing ministry on its IRRS applications.
Two further potential projects could have delivered another 44 homes, but Dwell was forced to ditch them because without certainty from the ministry it could not guarantee landowners they would be able to buy.
In a speech to the community housing sector's conference in November, Bishop said 500 of the 1500 homes were to be "allocated quickly". At that stage, only about 100 had been.
The remaining 1000 places would be given to "strategic partners" who could deliver homes at scale.
Lester said she had heard rumours those partners were being selected, but did not have any detail.
"We don't know how they were chosen, what criteria they were assessed against, who's been selected, we don't know if there are any community housing providers in Wellington that have been selected as strategic partners, and we just don't know what that means for the rest of us," she said.
"I think last I heard there were 85 community housing providers around the country and... if a handful have been selected, where does that leave the rest of us?"
If Dwell was not allocated any of the initial 500 homes, or chosen as a strategic partner for the remaining 1000, there would be serious consequences, said Lester.
"We will have lost millions.
"We have invested millions of dollars into properties, land, resource consent, professional fees, we've invested a lot of money into projects and if they're not going to go ahead, that's just lost money."
Bishop announced a shake up of social housing agency Kāinga Ora last week to control its ballooning debt. The "turnaround plan" will see the number of state-owned homes plateau at about 78,000 from next year.
Part of the minister's rationale was that Kāinga Ora was not the only organisation that could build social homes.
"You need to think about the wider social housing system, which includes the Salvation Army, Emerge, groups like the Dwell Community Trust in Wellington and other places around the country like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust in Christchurch, which does a great job and we are increasing the funding for those organisations," he told RNZ's Checkpoint, referring to the 1500 homes.
Lester said Dwell would "love to" deliver those homes, but it can not.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would not say how many homes had been allocated, or when the allocation would be complete.
Developments were being assessed based on whether they would maximise value for money, help reduce the number of people in emergency housing, and improve housing in historically under-served regions, a spokesperson said.
"HUD officials are currently focusing on progressing through approval processes for projects that fully align with our investment criteria," they said.
"Work is underway on the allocation of the remaining 1000 places to be delivered largely by strategic partnerships that the Minister of Housing will announce in due course."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
