Housing organisation on high alert

Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 2:16 pm
Press Release: Community Housing Aotearoa

Media Release - Tuesday 19 October 2010

Community housing organisations in a state of high readiness for latest news from Government

Community housing organisations around New Zealand are now on high alert for the release of decisions due to be made about the future direction of social housing in New Zealand.

"In the last few days our sector has been widely informed that the independent Housing Shareholder's Advisory Group has now submitted its latest report to the Ministers of Finance and Housing for their consideration," says David McCartney, executive officer of Community Housing Aotearoa, a peak body for organisations committed to meeting New Zealand's unmet housing needs.

"Organisations in our sector are now eagerly waiting for the Minister's responses to the calls to action made in the report, such as the calls for major structural changes and new development and funding approaches to housing.

David McCartney of Community Housing Aotearoa also noted that this is a crunch week for the 18 housing organisations that have applications in the latest round of the Housing Innovation Fund administered by Housing New Zealand for 29 projects.

"As identified in the stakeholder feedback collected by the Housing Advisory Group the Housing Innovation Fund has not really lived up to its name. Questions have also been raised about the frustration caused by its lack of flexibility and accessibility and the relatively small growth strategy it represents.

"While the amount of funding and how that is allocated is obviously important within our sector, Community Housing Aotearoa is just as concerned about the lost opportunities we are repeatedly told about - both for organisations who miss out and are not fully informed about what the deciding factors were, and for those who do cross the line for funding but are frequently still left seriously under-funded for what they are setting out to achieve."

Peter Jeffries of Auckland's Community of Refuge Trust: "To be frank the Housing Innovation Fund - as good a gesture as it originally was - has never been of sufficient scale, nor been open to enough strategic long-term thinking to make even a small dent in meeting the priority housing needs we deal with across the whole of the community housing sector. The 2010/2011 budget allocation of $20M of grants/loans to extend the Fund is obviously a drop in the bucket, and even more so if our sector is meant to do its bit to provide a greater proportion of social housing in the coming years."

David McCartney: "We welcomed the Housing Advisory Group's report when it was released in August and are pleased that it is continuing to make its way to the point where some far-reaching and future focused decisions can be made. The bottom line for us is that when the Government next considers how best to invest in our sector for the long-term we will continue to advocate that there has to be a better way to do that than we have seen through the Housing Innovation Fund alone."

Media Diary Note: The latest update from Housing New Zealand is that organisations selected to be on the shortlist for the Housing Innovation Fund would be informed by this Friday 22 October. Organisations such as Christchurch's ComCare Trust and the Tauranga Community Housing Trust have already been informed that they did not make the shortlist, despite being in two of the eight priority areas identified by Housing New Zealand. The other listed priority areas are Auckland, Wellington, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Nelson/Marlborough and Queenstown.

CHA contact - comms@communityhousing.org.nz

ends

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Community Housing Aotearoa

Nga Wharerau o Aotearoa

Community Housing Aotearoa is the peak body for New Zealand's community housing sector. Our 110 members build and manage affordable and social housing.

Our Vision is to make sure every New Zealander is well-housed in a warm, safe, dry and affordable home. This is a basic human right.

We work to support the growth and development of community housing providers to enable them to provide affordable and social housing.

We want to demonstrate that community housing is a critical element alongside private and government owned housing. No one can do it alone.

Community Housing Aotearoa aims to:

1. be the voice of the community housing sector
2. build capacity and foster collaboration
3. promote best practice in housing policy
4. champion quality and excellence.

Contact Community Housing Aotearoa

• Website - communityhousing.org.nz/
• Our Place - Learn how we think this can be achieved
• Phone - +64 4 385 8722
• About us - Our 2021 annual report is online here
• Email - support@communityhousing.org.nz
• Link - Members directory
• Physical Address - Level 11, Ranchhod Tower, 39 The Terrace/102-112 Lambton Quay, Wellington