400 homeless families a night in motels as Nats fail on housing – Labour Party

New figures show that 400 Kiwi families a night are being put in motels by the government because there isn’t enough state housing and emergency housing, says Leader of the Opposition Andrew Little.

Analysis by the Parliamentary Library shows that the $7.7m spent by the government on putting homeless families in motels in the last quarter of 2016 was enough to pay for an average of 400 motel rooms per night, based on the government’s cost estimate.

“State houses are meant to be there for families in need. Bill English has bled Housing NZ dry and ruthlessly slashed the number of state houses. Now, he’s spending a fortune to put 400 homeless families a night in motels.

“The huge number of families in motels is worsening the shortage of tourist accommodation. Moteliers are having to choose between giving rooms to tourists or homeless families. Kiwi families face being booted out of motels to make way for tourists coming to this country for the Masters Games and the Lions Tour.

“Bill English’s state house sell-off has created this crazy situation where homeless families and visitors to this country are in competition for the limited number of motel rooms. We shouldn’t be in the situation where motels are used to accommodate homeless families in the first place.

“Bill English has worsened the housing shortage; Labour will fix it. We’ll build thousands of state houses for families in need, alongside our KiwiBuild programme for first homebuyers,” says Andrew Little.