Paul Gilberd: Community Housing Aotearoa chief executive on the Government's plan to tighten standards for unruly tenants

The Government's stronger approach towards unruly Kainga Ora tenants has resulted in more being evicted.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop ordered the public housing agency to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework in March this year, and strengthen management of disruptive tenants.

Since then, 14 tenancies have been terminated, compared to only 8 last year.

Community Housing Aotearoa chief executive Paul Gilberd says there were no consequences for the last six years.

"It's a matter of last resort, the numbers are increasing because they were not evicting people at all - that's operating from a very low base. There's a whole lot of other considerations here we need to take into account."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fourteen unruly tenants have been evicted from caying or order
properties in the last three months. That's fourteen and three months,
up from just eight for all of twenty twenty three.
The government has created a new Disruptive Behavior policy to
make it easier for KO to evict tenants, but there
are calls for there to be more support before people
lose their homes. Joining me now is Community Housing ALTET

(00:22):
our chief executive Paul Gilbert. Gilbert I should say, Paul,
good morning to you. Where did these people go once
they've given the boot?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Look, you're asking the right question. We've got about twenty
thousand houses within the community housing sector, but I'm afraid
to say that they actually have people living in them.
So from a community housing perspective, we can have struggled
to take. I mean, those are low numbers, let's face it,
on the scale of things. When Ko's got sixty thousand houses,

(00:52):
that's not a hell of a lot of Farno who
are being exited. But we were not sure where they're
going to go. We've been asking the same question.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Right because there's obviously no room at you're in, there's
no other room at. Chaos in the private market. I
mean they're not going to take them, are they.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, it's a question of affordability at that point, because
basically the private market will do what it does and
maximize its financial return. And these are typically households. The
ones we're talking about are low income households usually and
they can't afford to live in the open market. It
just doesn't stack up.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Do these numbers stack up to you? So fourteen this
is under the new rules, fourteen tenants evicted in the
space of three months. How many would you evict from
you that your members' homes? I understand they're about thirty
five thousand people living in twenty odd thousand homes. How
many would you evict?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, look, I think proportionately, just to be straight up,
community members, community housing providers also do is it tenants?
We have always used that as an absolute sort of
last measure of last resort, right when all other avenues
have been pursued KO numbers. Basically they had for the

(02:08):
last six years there was an absolute no eviction's policy,
which is a very difficult circumstance to work in because
there are no consequences. So our view really is it's
a matter of last resort. The numbers are increasing because
they were not evicting people at all. That's operating from
a very low base. And there's a whole lot of

(02:29):
other considerations here that we need to taken into account,
and so you know, we're not we're not alone facing
these issues. But this is not answering the problem. It's
kind of shifting the problem for those who are victed.
Where do they go to? They and have then cost
the taxpayer is a really big deal because what are
they going to do if they're homeless.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
The other thing, though, is you've got two thousand people
in motels, you've got what twenty four thousand on their
social housing wait list. It's not fair to them to
have some thug who's threatening their neighbors in a house
when this family needs it. So you've got it. You've
got to kick them out, don't you.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, in our case, with the appropriate housing and appropriate support,
it's possible, we believe for all New Zealanders to have
a home. Someone is neither of those. It's making things worse,
not better.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's around what do you do? How do you do
that if they're threatening the neighbors?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, okay, so this is where we've started and have
been running for a long time now tendency placement partnerships,
and what that means is that you've got to look
at the characteristics of the households. If you've got an
alpha male in the household, it's not a great idea
to stick them in a high density situation where they're
in highst proximity lots of other families. You need to
go for a single site, or you need to select

(03:44):
gives them a role in the community, like the Salvation
Army do. For example. They'll give a bloke like that
a job in the community that they live in. They'll say, hey,
could you keep an eye on who's coming and going
from the facility rather than just leaving them to it.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
So it's basically a really intensive approach to dealing with
a tenant like that. Paul, thank you very much for
your time. Paul Gilbert, this Morning, Community Housing Altered, our
chief executive. For more from News Talk st B, listen
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