The Government today made three state housing announcements, but there's a question mark over how much credit the new Government can take for two of the builds.
One-hundred and fifty-five new statehouses will be built in 15 regional centres by the middle of June this year. Housing NZ says this initiative is new under the Labour-led Government.
"If we want to reduce homelessness, we must build more state houses. If more state houses had been built in the past decade, we would not have the levels of homelessness we do today," Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford said.
But the some of the builds are not entirely new.
The minister said "some" of the individual regional houses were scoped under the previous Government, but he was unable to say how many.
He said the difference is the Labour-led Government has given Housing New Zealand the green light to go ahead with the builds.
"Many of them have been in the pipeline for some time. The difference is... we are ramping up the state build."
The Labour-led Government aims to build 1000 state homes a year, but Mr Twyford hopes to double that.
New state houses will be built the following regional centres:
- Far North - 10
- Rotorua - 8
- Whakatane 8
- Napier/Hastings 49
- New Plymouth 6
- Whanganui 7
- Palmerston North 11
- Nelson / Marlborough 20
- South Canterbury 19
- Dunedin 14
- Invercargill 3
State housing in west Auckland
Work has begun on the redevelopment of Housing NZ sites in New Lynn that will intensify the number of dwellings on the land.
The redevelopment will see 16 state homes built in the 1940s bowled to make way for 82 new houses, most of them one-bedroom apartments.
While Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford was at the site to announce the beginning of the build on Friday morning, the project wasn't started under the Labour-led Government.
The project was started by former Social Housing Minister Amy Adams under the National Government.
Short-term housing
This morning 50 new transitional homes were opening in Manurewa, south Auckland.
Transitional housing is short-term housing for people who need a house immediately, and is a place to stay while long-term housing is sorted.
The development is managed by the Salvation Army and is a joint project between the Ministry of Social Development and Housing New Zealand. The 50 homes will provide a place to stay for 600 people over the next three years.
As with the New Lynn state housing development, this project was started by former Social Housing Minister Amy Adams under the National Government.
Associate Housing and Urban Development Minister Jenny Salesa told Newshub the Labour-led Government has a much larger build programme, which will include projects started by the previous Government.
"We have a much bigger programme planned to increase the number of homes for emergency housing than the last government. It does include some projects planned under the last government. We are pragmatic."
There are 1900 transitional housing places across New Zealand.
Newshub.
