PHOTO: National’s housing spokesperson Nicola Willis on The AM Show. Newshub / Getty Images
The number of people in need of state housing has increased tenfold in the past two years, a Newshub investigation has found – and the Opposition’s housing spokesperson, Nicola Willis, says the Government is to blame.
Speaking to The AM Show on Monday morning, Willis was quick to point the finger at Labour for New Zealand’s ongoing housing challenges.
On Sunday, Newshub exclusively revealed that 198 people are in dire need of state housing – but the waitlist is more than six months long.
A detailed breakdown of the priority ratings spanning the 23,000 people on the state housing waitlist shows it’s currently taking more than six months to house the 1 percent of New Zealanders deemed the most at risk.
Willis says the Government only has itself to blame for its inability to keep up with the demand for state homes.
“This was a Government that was elected on a promise to solve New Zealand’s housing challenges and these figures show they’ve simply got a lot worse. They’ve got to take responsibility,” she said.
“You can judge a Government not only by how many needy people it helps, but how many vulnerable people it creates. What we’ve seen under Labour is thousands more people squeezed out of the private rental market with average rents going up around $100 a week, and those people are ending up having to line up at MSD [the Ministry of Social Development] and ask for a state house – and the Government just can’t keep up with that demand.”
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