Emergency housing 'working as best it can' - Megan Woods

Housing Minister Megan Woods told Q+A on Sunday that New Zealand's emergency housing is "working as best it can" but also acknowledged that the Government is continually exploring what it can do better.

It comes a week after the investigation by TVNZ's Sunday show into Rotorua's emergency housing crisis. Woods described the story as "incredibly confronting".

"This is not a situation that anyone, let alone our government, wants people to be living in and that's exactly why we've got a programme of work so that we can move beyond people being in emergency housing," she told John Campbell. "What is working is that we are actually starting to rebuild our public housing stock. You can have emergency housing, you can have transitional housing, but what you've got to have at the other end of that is more public housing."

When pressed on whether emergency housing in motels was working, Woods said: "It is working as best it can."

READ MORE: Rotorua emergency housing 'feasting on dysfunction' - Waititi

"They're an incredibly vulnerable group of people who otherwise were sleeping in cars and in the doorways of shops. This is not a situation that anybody wants to be in. If I had a magic wand, we would have no-one in emergency housing... But in terms of the situation that we're working through, is it working? It's working as best as it can.

"I don't think that we've got this perfect and I'm not going to sit here and say 'everything is perfect and nothing needs to change', but this is a process where we are continually working with people on the ground to see what we can do better.

"Where we are finding that we can do things better, we are."

You can watch Sunday's full investigation here:

Woods was asked whether she had confidence in Visions of a Helping Hand, an emergency housing provider the Government contracts.

Clients of Visions of a Helping Hand have alleged intimidation, negligence and abuse of power by staff and subcontracted security workers. It’s alleged Visions staff have kicked women and children out of motels and transitional homes, including a woman who was in labour at the time. Another woman says her children were so scared of Tigers Express Security guards, she bought a car to sleep in with her children instead.

It’s also alleged Tigers Express Security guards have been involved in sexual relations with vulnerable tenants, taken drugs on the job and that patched gang members have worked security shifts for the company. Both organisations are run by Rotorua man Tiny Deane, and Tigers Express Security subcontracts to Visions of a Helping Hand. Deane has refused to be interviewed.

READ MORE: Security company at centre of emergency housing expose investigated

But Woods said that she has confidence in the provider, saying: "What I know is that there's been thousands of people that have been helped by Visions of a Helping Hand, that have gone through Rotorua.

"I have confidence that we are addressing the issues that have been brought to light."

She added that if a contracted motel was not up to standard than "yes, we do absolutely need to exit", but said this had not happened before because the "right processes" are in place.

READ MORE: Govt needs to use community housing providers - Luxon

"People have the right to a dignity of where they live, I absolutely stand by that," Woods said. "Yes, we do have processes in place to make sure that our clients are being kept safe and that is the utmost concern that we have.

"Visions probably are a bit stricter than some of the other providers, that's probably one of the things that's come to light this week.

"It's not appropriate that women and children don't have anywhere to go, but if they're not working in a particular complex, then in some circumstances, yes, if it is for the safety of other tenants, then that does also have to be taken into consideration because all of our clients deserve dignity and safety."

The public housing wait list has grown from under 5000 in March 2017, just before Labour took office, to almost 27,000 in March 2022.

But Labour claims it's growing the state house supply faster than any other New Zealand government ever.

During National's last term in government, from 2008 to 2017, the total number of public houses dropped just over 2000.

Since Labour has been in power, public housing supply has grown by more than 10,000.

The Rotorua security company featured in the Sunday investigation isn't connected in any way to Tiger Security based in Waimauku, Auckland.