Housing Minister Chris Bishop says he’s “open” to changing emergency housing eligibility rules as providers report rising rough sleeping and homelessness.
In response to questions in a Q+A interview, Bishop said he would consider changes to the Government’s contributing clause in emergency housing provisions, which requires applicants to prove they haven’t contributed to their housing need.
“I don’t really want to do it. I’ll do it if I think it would make a difference, but I don’t want to go back to a situation where the large-scale use of motels for emergency housing is where we get to,” he said.
“I’m open to it. I’m not foreclosing the option of doing that, but we’re trying to close down the use of motels for emergency housing for a reason.”
He added when pressed further: “We’ve made it easier to get out, but we’ve made it harder to get in, and that was a deliberate policy choice.
“I’m open to some tweaks and changes, but the underlying issue is one we’ve got to grapple with, which is how have we ended up with people who sleep rough on the streets. It’s not a money issue, because we spend half a billion a year in this space already as a government. It’s a systems issue, and it’s a coordination problem.
“That’s one of the things I’ve been grappling with over the last couple of weeks with Tama Potaka, so you can expect some more action on that soon.”
However, Bishop did not accept that the Government’s changes to emergency housing eligibility had been one of the factors contributing to a rise in homelessness.
The Housing Minister said he was waiting on “urgent advice” as outreach groups report growing numbers of people sleeping rough.
“We’ve got a problem when it comes to rough sleeping, and I’ve spent, you know, much of the last couple of weeks talking to the City Mission in Auckland and other providers in other parts of the country,” he said.
“We’ve asked for some urgent advice about what we can do, but it’s worth remembering that this is a long-running problem for New Zealand.”
Bishop’s comments come weeks after Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka acknowledged that “many” had linked the tightening of eligibility for the emergency housing policy to rising homelessness.
Potaka said some providers had described the policy as “very, very harsh,” though, like Bishop, he demurred when pressed whether the Government’s policies were to blame for reports of more people being out on the streets.
The Government introduced tougher eligibility criteria for emergency housing last year.
People seeking support would face greater scrutiny, more requirements for information, and to prove they hadn’t themselves “contributed” to their needs for emergency housing.
At the time, officials warned the Government that the changes risked putting more people into situations of rough sleeping.
More to come
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
