Kerre Woodham: Who's hands should social housing be in?

Who on Earth would want Chris Bishop's job? The Minister for Housing has launched a new scheme designed to make it easier for community housing providers to provide social housing. The previous administration was all about the government, we're from the government, we're here to help – people within the industry have told me of a rather bunkered attitude towards housing provision. The attitude was no, the private developers can't do anything about the shortage of housing, they can't do anything about social housing, we the government will do it better because we, the government, have the most pure of motives, so we'll do it. Community housing providers they had a place for, but ultimately it was Kainga Ora who was going to solve the problem of affordable housing, in the mind of the previous government. It didn't work out like that.

Now Chris Bishop has said the government is looking to community housing providers to fill more of the gap, and they're going to help them by treating them on a level playing field with Kianga Ora when it comes to competing for funding to deliver social housing. They're not going to give them money, but they will allow them to compete on a level playing field when it comes to bidding to provide social housing. Chris Bishop says that unlike the last government, they’re agnostic as to whether it's the state or the community sector that delivers social housing.

At the moment, Kainga Ora provides some 72,000 public homes, which is the vast majority of the more than 80,000 public housing places offered by the government. Community housing providers, the Salvation Army and the like, receive government funding to provide a similar service in privately owned homes —so they're not owned by the state, they're owned by trusts or organisations— but they are only providing around 8000 homes for people.

We know that Kainga Ora is struggling. The Bill English report says it's basically not financially viable because under Labour, Kainga Ora became an urban development agency. It was a bold ambition, and if it had worked, it would have been amazing. If they'd been the money, if they'd been the governance, if they'd been, if if, if, if. It was a large-scale urban renewal project that mixed all kinds of housing, public and private, it was next to public transport, which was going to be built as well. It was going to be hoots wahay and amazing, incredible. But that didn't happen.

To be fair, Kainga Ora is also struggling because successive governments, including the John Key/Bill English government, underinvested in state housing. The lack of social housing and affordable housing was one of the hot issues of the 2017 election campaign and that helped get Labour into office. Housing is still a political hot potato, with this government struggling to wrangle Kainga Ora into financial shape and provide more housing for people who are really struggling to find a place to live. So Chris Bishop is hoping that by changing contracts for new housing supply, it's going to make it more attractive for investors and financiers to invest in community housing.

They are going to allow increased use of leasing to provide social houses where leasing delivers value for money – that could help deliver more social housing very quickly and would only be available for newly built homes that have not yet been occupied. And they would also capitalise part of the operating supplement currently paid to community housing providers for new housing developments, to be paid upfront when contracts for new social housing are agreed. So if your eyes are glazing over, it will mean that the money will be given to them up front rather than in various portions as the housing comes online.

Labour's Kieran McAnulty says Chris Bishop's all talk. He said it was hoped that there would have been government support for desperately needed public housing. And by support, I guess he means money - upfront money. Instead, there was no commitment to build any more public homes and no further support for the community housing providers, no increases to income related rent subsidies. Everyone was hoping the government would at least announce it would guarantee loans for the newly established Community Housing Funding Agency to make them cheaper, but again, no commitment from the Minister.

When it comes to providing state housing the government has always been the first port of call, traditionally and historically. Then there was underinvestment from successive governments in the Kainga Ora stock, and also the needs of people changed. You didn't need a three bedroom house with room for a veggie garden and a nice kitchen for mum to bake the afternoon tea for the kids when they came home from school. That's just not what the modern family looks like compared to 1933, so there have had to be changes to stock. People who go into social housing, many of them have jobs, they have families, they raise them, they move on. Others are their longer term and as tenants, they need to be as they need more management.

The Community Housing providers tend to do that better because they have fewer tenants. When you've got a Kainga Ora tenant manager, they have far more people that they're trying to manage. Community Housing providers can prevent problems happening before they happen, Kainga Ora tends to be more reactive because there are just more people. There's also an expectation than once you get a State House, that's where you land, you don't move on, you've got it for life. Whereas in the past it was understood that it was a stepping stone.

So when it comes to the provision of social housing, do we need to put more in the hands of the community housing providers? Will these changes, as far as you're concerned, make it easier for them to do so? I think the leasing will probably make it easier. Whether the changes to the contracts for new housing supply will make it more attractive for investors, that will be for them to decide. Do we want Kainga Ora to fulfil its vision of being a developer? Bold, visionary, large scale developer of urban renewal projects? I mean I get where they were coming from, but they couldn't deliver, they didn't have the money, they didn't have the governance, they were operating in it time when the housing market was going completely and utterly insane in the post pandemic years. It was a perfect storm.

If you're looking for a home, do you care whether it comes from Kainga Ora? Do you care whether it comes from a community housing provider? If you're living in an area where social housing developments are being built, are they being done so thoughtfully? What is the role of the state to provide public housing? Should it be, as Keiran McAnulty said, just give them loans - give the Community Housing providers loans. Let them get on with it because they do it well.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.