Extra social housing places for Auckland
07 December 2015.
More social housing places will be available in Auckland as the Ministry of Social Development enters into agreements with five community housing providers to deliver an extra 508 social housing places.
This is a significant step to help provide more social housing for vulnerable families and children and grow the number of community housing providers.
Earlier this year the Ministry issued a Request for Proposal seeking proposals for an extra 300 income-related rent subsidy (IRRS) social housing tenancies in Auckland.
The response was encouraging with various proposals submitted and our contracts team settled on five community housing providers to deliver 508 social housing places over the next one-to-two years. The focus is on delivering the extra places in the high demand areas of West and South Auckland with the first places expected to be available by early 2016.
The first contracts with Accessible Properties (358) the Salvation Army (87) and Chinese New Settlers Trust (36) for 481 places have been signed and contracts with the two other providers are being finalised.
The extra tenancies will come from a mix of new builds and leased properties – provided or sourced by the community housing providers.
To deliver these extra social housing places, the Ministry is entering into tailored agreements with community housing providers.
Tailored agreements offer flexibility with how MSD contracts with providers to better meet the diverse range of tenant needs in many ways, including contracting for specific types of social housing and related services and purchasing social housing places now or in the future.
The Government is increasing funding for social housing subsidies to 65,000 places by 2017/18 and MSD is playing a key part in that by helping to grow the number of social housing providers.
Through our role as a purchaser of IRRS tenancies, by publishing our current and future purchasing intentions by region, and by actively seeking new places of the right size and in the right places we have a significant role to play in helping to meet the demand for social housing.
