April 2014 - Social housing reforms

There has been a significant amount of activity in the social/community housing sector since late last year when the Government’s Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment) Bill was passed into law. The intention of the Bill is to create the right environment to support the growth of the social housing sector, in particular by facilitating the development of a more diverse range of providers.

It is intending to do this by extending the income-related rent subsidy - currently only available to Housing New Zealand – to community housing organisations like Dwell. Budget 2013 provided $27 million over four years to support this although the subsidy will only be available for new tenants.

To be eligible for the income-related rent subsidy community housing organisations like Dwell need to become “registered” and the Bill made provision for a Registrar of community housing organisations. Dwell and other organisations who had obtained prequalification with the Social Housing Unit are automatically deemed a registered provider for one year.

Another aspect of the changes is that the housing needs assessment currently undertaken by Housing New Zealand will be transferred to the Ministry of Social Development. All these changes take effect from 14 April 2014, so change is here.

We have written a lot of submissions and attended numerous briefings since the start of the year. As yet we are unsure how this will affect Dwell and our customers but we’ll be monitoring the changes closely and will keep you informed through the new Dwell website and our newsletters.