PSA MEDIA RELEASE

Sept 15, 2011

Taking the ‘social’ out of Housing New Zealand will have dire consequences

Proposed changes at Housing New Zealand prove the National-led Government is more interested in cost-cutting than in providing efficient, linked-up public services, but that’s a move that will cost society more in the end, says the PSA.

As a social landlord, Housing New Zealand has a unique duty of care to its tenants, but that responsibility has all but been forgotten in a new proposal to staff.

The state housing provider has told the PSA it is set to cut 70-220 jobs as the agency narrows its focus to managing properties and instructs staff to stop assisting tenants’ with their wider social needs.

This comes just weeks after the agency announced it would now only house individuals with high needs, many of whom have mental health issues.

“It’s an illogical proposal,” says PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff.

“Housing New Zealand is best placed to link tenants to the other social services they may need and it’s played a vital role in doing that up to now.

“That liaison may only have involved making the phone call that gets the ball rolling or some gentle encouragement to co-operate with mental health staff or other service workers who turn up on the doorstep.

“Now tenancy managers have been told to carry-out household action plans that will move tenants from a position of ‘dependency’ to ‘independence’. How does that work when your tenants have high and often complex needs?

“The direct intervention that Housing New Zealand tenancy managers presently provide can have significant impact on the wellbeing of tenants and thereby the wider community. If you take that support away you invite problems that eventually, one or other state agency will have to deal with.

“What happened to the Government’s goal of linked-up, more efficient public services? What agencies will pick up the liaison work that housing managers have provided until recently?

“Housing New Zealand CEO Dr Lesley McTurk says new protocols are being developed with MSD but Housing NZ’s high-needs criterion and instruction to staff has been in place since July so there is already a gap.

“This is nothing more than a cost exercise that has potential to result in more homelessness and more money having to be spent to fix mistakes. You can’t take the social out of Housing New Zealand, it’s a social landlord.

“The bitter irony of this is that the new eligibility criterion for state housing is so difficult to meet, Housing New Zealand actually has vacant properties in some areas. What will happen to those properties? Perhaps they’ll be sold off while community housing trusts struggle to find accommodation for all the people Housing New Zealand is no longer housing,” says Richard Wagstaff.

ENDS

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