More funding for Community Housing Aotearoa

Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith tonight announced at the Habitat for Humanity Annual Conference in Auckland that Community Housing Aotearoa will receive $452,000 of funding over the next two years.

“Community Housing Aotearoa is the representative body that binds our community social housing sector together. It plays an important role in aiding the development and representation of community social housing providers, as well as contributing to policy development, sector training, and research,” Dr Smith says.

“This significant increase in funding from the Social Housing Fund represents the importance the Government places on growing and developing the provision of community social housing.

“The beauty of community social housing providers is their ability to provide wrap around services to their clients and transition people to independence, at the same time as delivering a high quality housing service.”

The Government is supporting the growth of the community social housing sector by providing capital grants through the $139 million Social Housing Fund and through legislative changes contained in the Social Housing Reform Bill.

“The game changer in this bill is that community social housing providers will have access to income related rent subsidies for new tenants who qualify. These subsidies are currently only available to Housing New Zealand. The housing needs assessment will also be made independent of HNZ and transferred to the Ministry of Social Development to ensure a level playing field between social housing providers,” Dr Smith says.

The Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill is due to be reported back to Parliament by 1 October.