Kāinga Ora vacancies ‘trending downwards’ following minister’s letter

The number of empty Kāinga Ora homes is falling, after the Housing Minister wrote a stern letter asking the agency to urgently fill them.

Chris Bishop wrote to Kāinga Ora’s board in January, after the Post’s Erin Gourley reported it had thousands of vacant properties at the end of last year, despite a growing waiting list for social housing.

This represents around 5% of the total social housing stock, which is “completely unacceptable”, Bishop said.

But Kāinga Ora central deputy chief executive Daniel Soughtton said the number of vacant and ready-to-rent homes “has generally been on a downward trend”.

The agency recently changed the way it counts vacancies to be more accurate, as previous figures included homes that were being remodeled, modernized or disposed of, which were actually unlivable.

New figures show that in August last year there were 1,733 empty homes that could be rented, approximately 2.4% of the total. At the end of March it had fallen to 1,188, representing 1.65% of the total stock.

Of those homes, 163 were newly built that month, 650 were classified as “rental ready” and 375 were undergoing minor repairs and would soon be ready for people to move into.

“Because the number of homes under repair and the number of homes coming into service vary from month to month, there will always be small fluctuations in the data, which is why we focus on the long-term trend,” Soughtton said . .

“We are confident that we will continue to see the number of vacant homes continue to decline over the long term, although it is important to note that there will always be a level of vacancies.”

Vacancies could be due to rental turnover, the delivery of newly built homes that are ready for occupancy and the reserving of homes for clients with specific needs, he said.

“Recognizing these factors, we expect a prudent level of vacancies to be, on average, around 1.5% to 2% going forward.

“However, when the delivery of new-build social housing peaks, we may briefly exceed that target.”

Since the minister’s letter, the agency has worked to get people into vacant homes more quickly, including working more closely with Ministry of Social Development staff who know housing registrants and can help to find homes, introducing group visits and registrations. where multiple clients view homes at once and dedicates additional resources in areas where a large number of new homes are delivered.

The agency was also improving maintenance processes to ensure repairs are completed as quickly as possible, reducing the time a home sits empty between tenants.

He couldn’t say how long some of the unoccupied homes had been empty because of the reporting changes, but he was “working to rectify this.”

Bishop said he was pleased to see the numbers trending downward.

“My expectation, which I expressed very clearly to Kāinga Ora earlier this year, is that unoccupied houses will not remain empty for a day longer than is absolutely necessary,” he said.

“I recognize that there will be cases where, for valid reasons such as maintenance or essential repairs, houses will need to be empty for a short period of time.

“However, especially while we have thousands of families in emergency accommodation motels and the social housing waiting list is at record levels, I hope Kāinga Ora is working to fill every empty house urgently.”

rnz.co.nz