29 May 2020
DOIA19/20030400
Tom Dickie
[FYI request #12446 email]
Dear Mr Dickie
I refer to your request of 14 March 2020 to the Ministry of Social Development, requesting, under
the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), the following information:
Please advise, in financial terms, the amount of NZ dollars provided to Registered Community
Housing Providers (CHPs) and the resultant number of people occupied in new housing
accommodation constructed in the calendar year of 2019, as a direct consequence of the monies
provided to CHPs within the calendar year of 2019, that otherwise would not have resulted in the
housing accommodation having been constructed and people housed.
On 17 March 2020, your request was transferred in full to the Ministry of Housing and Urban
Development (the Ministry) for response.
This Government is seeing more people asking for help with accommodation than ever before. As
you may be aware, Budget 2020 announced funding of $570 million over the next four years to
provide an extra 8,000 homes; approximately 6,000 public housing homes and 2,000 transitional
homes. The Ministry will continue to work with Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities (Kāinga Ora),
Community Housing Providers (CHPs) and the wider housing sector to achieve the Government’s
goal of increasing the supply of public housing.
In response to your request, I note you have asked for “
the number of people occupied in new
housing accommodation constructed in the calendar year of 2019, as a direct consequence of the
monies provided to CHPs within the calendar year of 2019”. Gathering the information to indicate
those housed as a direct consequence of monies provided in 2019 would involve a manual search
and review of all invoices in order to match the funding to the places provided. As such, this part of
your request has been refused under section 18(f) of the Act, due to the substantial collation required.
In addition, it should be noted that funding for new builds is provided in instalments as construction
progresses. Therefore, the funding that is provided to CHPs in one calendar year does not
necessarily reflect the total construction cost of the places or that those places will be ready to accept
tenants in that same calendar year. Construction build times can vary and there are many factors
that can affect the length of time, most recently we have seen this occur with the response to
COVID-19.
The Ministry holds information on the number of public housing
tenancies. A public housing tenancy
could be for a single person, or a family. Without manual collation we are unable to provide the
number of distinct people housed, instead we can provide the number of tenancies, which can be
understood as the number of ‘households’ housed.
