Tama Potaka: Associate Housing Minister says there's been a 32 percent drop in households living in motels since December

A suggestion from the Government that some emergency housing tenants don't need to be there.

Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka claims there's been a 32 percent drop in households living in motels since December — roughly a thousand children.

Labour's accusing the Government of making it harder for people to access support.

But Potaka told Mike Hosking there are responsibilities that come with using taxpayer funds for housing.

“There are less people going in because we’ve made it clear and transparent around the criteria that you have to satisfy in order to get into emergency housing.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it looks like good news from the Emergency Housing Department.
The number of emergency households has dropped by a third
in six months, more than one thousand, half of whom
have ended up in social housing. Thirty percent have gone
out to the private sector. Of the Associate Housing Minister
Tamapotak is in chargeable listener is with us. Good morning
to you, gotter Mike.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
How you're doing very well?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Indeed, have you bumped social housing people out the other side,
in other words, to accommodate the emergency people or are
there just more people in social housing?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, there's typical movement through the system. So some people
have left social housing to go into private housing, but
there's also been a few more social and housing builts
which people have moved into.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Okay, the private accommodation. Can you track them and prove
that they've gone into private accommodation and the sort of
housing that you would expect them to be in, living
in conditions that we all find acceptable.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, when people leave emergency housing, they can tell us
where they're going, and many of those folks are going
into private housing which has accommodation supplement, so they do
have a little bit of social support, subsidy support of
the quality of every single house. No, we can't track that.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
So what's happened here because Labour says this is all
bs of course andy shuffling numbers around the place.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, Labour's got a lot of views and reckons and
we just operate on data and evidence. So the evidence
is that there are less people going in because have
made it clear and transparent around the criteria that you
have to satisfy in order to get into emergency housing.
And on the other side, we've been really focused on
making sure that we get people into different types of houses,
some social, some private. And there's a small group of

(01:31):
people we actually don't know where they go because they
don't need to tell us where they go. But the
key is, Mike, when we arrived million dollars a day,
Now it's nearly half a million dollars a day for
emergency housing.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Right, So when you change the criteria, where are those
people who don't make it?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, many of those people that were coming in through
emergency housing before we change the criteria, they didn't really
have a genuine meat, So they might be staying with
the family, they might have their own housing, they might
have moved out of social housing in one town to
try and get into emergency housing and another town. We've
made it clear when you are using taxpayer funds in
order to have house and that there are responsibilities that

(02:06):
go with that. So in emergency housing, I've got to
be clear that if you've found yourself in a position
where you do need emergency housing and there's a genuine need,
the state will support you. But if there's no genuine need,
the state will say, well, you need to find a house.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is this a trend that will continue or have you
just got the early low hanging fruit here.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Business blue sheet smoke and we don't know exactly where
it's going. But what we are very clear on is
we have better evidence, we have better data, and we've
got a process and a plan to bring the numbers down.
There are a couple of new things that we're going
to have to do to get those numbers down further,
because now we'll get into more complex and harder to reach.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Farno, you've got a busy day today. We've got some
news coming on the Marrie Crown Relations Agency.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, and due course decisions will be made on various matters.
That one included. But let's see how we go and
we'll report Becker when we find out.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Good on you appreciate your time. I think that's a yes,
isn't it? That little bit of year coming this afternoon. If
you're not up on that, and it's what they're doing,
it's te otafiti are They're going to absorb, absorb the
work streams of the married Crown Relations Agency back into
the justice and to put a cockerdy. The reason I
mentioned that is because of course the married party is
going to go nuts and the whole race relations thing
is going to be fired up again for another week.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
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