Lindsay Mitchell
lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com
Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio, tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.
Information
Opinion
The following graph shows the number of MSD clients living in emergency housing up to 2021:
Typically, around 92 per cent of clients are housed in hotels/motels with the remainder in hostels/holiday parks.
The next chart shows a breakdown by area:
I am not convinced that the demand grew solely from “a shortage of affordable housing” – the reason provided by MSD. Neither is population growth a convincing reason with 2016 providing a mid-point – not a beginning.
I think the demand was driven largely by expectation.
When people begin to hear about others in their circles being provided with motel accommodation for free they will start to respond. When people see modern state housing being built with attractive income-related rents they will want to get into one even if that means waiting in emergency housing for free for a period.
Belatedly, in October 2021, MSD started to charge emergency housing clients 25% of their income (in line with the income-related rent subsidy) because apparently, “Anecdotal evidence from our front-line staff suggests there may be small numbers of clients in [emergency housing] that are incentivised to access and remain in [emergency housing] when they have an alternative housing option because they face no accommodation costs.”
There is some reduction in that year’s numbers. But 2022 is shaping up to look more like 2020 based on stats to July 31 (12,465 clients).
No doubt there are rental accommodation shortages (driven by Labour’s hostile policies towards landlords) but behavioural economics probably explains a good part of this unprecedented rush to emergency providers.
Purely my opinion of course.
(BTW Rotorua has established a database of accommodation providers classified by whether they provide emergency housing or not. Many do not. I link to it in the interest of helping Rotorua restore its tourism industry. I have many fond family memories of happy holidays spent there.)
