Neighbours complain of ‘horrendous’ behaviour from Kāinga Ora tenants

The Government cannot say what it would take for a Kāinga Ora tenant to get kicked out of one of its houses.

It denies having a hard-line ‘no eviction’ policy despite not evicting any Kāinga Ora tenants in the past three years.

Families that RNZ has spoken to say they are at their wits’ end after months of neighbourhood brawls, property damage and even death threats.

Among them are Sarah’s elderly parents, Kāinga Ora tenants themselves, who recently got new neighbours in Whāngarei.

“From the first night the tenants moved in we had smashed windows, door trims pulled up and a woman being dragged from a car,” Sarah said.

“So from the very first night it was horrendous and it hasn’t settled.”

Sarah said incidents escalated over time and recently came to a head when one of the tenants threatened to kill her 82-year-old stepfather.

“It was about 9am when he went to turn over his boat motor to get ready for fishing. The guy came out, he’d obviously been woken up and he wasn’t very happy.

“That’s when he made the threat that he was going to slit his throat and watch him bleed out in the water. My stepdad hasn’t started his boat since.”

Sarah said Kāinga Ora had halved her parents’ rent, paid for counselling sessions and organised regular security checks but only eviction would address the stress.

“They’re not coping. There is no help, there is no support and they’re just sitting there every day waiting for this to end. A pin will drop and my mum’s going to freak out. They’re going to have post-traumatic stress from this.”