Media Release

16 February 2009

Milestone housing project for Wellington

Wellington families who are struggling to find affordable homes will benefit from a new six-unit community housing project which opens this week.

The Wellington Housing Trust project is a milestone, not only for the organisation but also for the city, says Trust Director Alison Cadman.

"The Trust is New Zealand's oldest community based housing group. This is the first new build we have completed. Two of the homes have four bedrooms and are designed to meet the needs of large refugee and other families. There is a chronic shortage of this type of housing in Wellington city. We had 12 families that needed our homes but sadly we only had two units."

The Newtown project will be formally opened by Tariana Turia, Minister of the Community and Voluntary Sector on Wednesday 18 February and the CE of Housing NZ Dr Lesley McTurk will also be present.

The $2 million project has been made possible through funding from the government's Housing Innovations Fund (administered by Housing NZ), with the bulk of the funding being a loan.

The Trust is calling on this government to give more support to the community housing sector and organisations like the Trust so they can provide housing on a larger scale and meet the increasing housing needs in Wellington and nationally. Ms Cadman says "It is really encouraging to see the government's recent increase to the funding pool for community housing. However in this economic climate the government could be injecting more money into the housing sector by simply lending money to groups like ours and at the same time helping the many families who are struggling in this city and nationally. Our organisation is well placed to meet needs on a larger scale if we were given the right support by government."

ENDS

The Wellington Housing Trust is a charitable organisation that was formed in 1981. It provides housing at below market rents to Wellingtonians who are struggling to find affordable homes.

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