Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Paul Giberd: Social Housing Aotearoa CEO on the social housing overhaul and possible impact on elderly people

Transcript

Paul Giberd: Social Housing Aotearoa CEO on the social housing overhaul and possible impact on elderly people · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Housing announcement. This is Bishop and Willis yesterday. So social
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: housing you'll get eighty thousand families paying an extra thirty
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: bucks a week from twenty seven. Private rentals you get
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand paying fifteen bucks a week less. Paul
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Gilbert is Chief executive Social Housing out heret are on
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the phone this morning, Paul.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Are you better off right now? Are you better off
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in social housing or are you better off in private rentals?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Look, that's there's a mixed question there because most New
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Zealanders are experiencing the private rental market pretty poorly. We've
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: got an atrocious tat record of maintaining our houses adequately,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and so there's a hell of a large number of
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: people who are really not doing very well in the
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: private rental market at the moment.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: What's the split? How many people are in the social
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: housing versus getting an accommodation supplement for the private do
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, sort of ballpark. I can tell I can
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: tell you listeners that there are around we call it
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: the intermediate market or the stressed rental market. There's now
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: about one hundred and sixteen thousand households who are living
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: in the private rental market getting some form of support
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: like accommodation supplement, which really as a program, Accommodation Supplement's
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a spectacular failure. It really hasn't done the job it
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: was supposed to building those sorts of pathways that Chris
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Bishop was talking about yesterday.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Is there anything in this that will help to improve
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: that situation?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Then, Look, we agree with the Minister that there is
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a real opportunity for sort of leveling up the playing
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: field here. But I mean, I don't know if your
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: grandma is alive or our mine's not. There's a thousands
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: of the people on the social housing who are in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: social housing today are older adults and their biggest problem
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: is they simply can't afford the rent because a fixed
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: low income on a pension, it leaves you about two
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: hundred bucks a week for rent, and I don't know
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: many places in the country you can get a home
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: for that much money. The harder to get at group
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: high and complex needs. And our concern is that if
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: we don't get these changes right, well, we as taxpayers
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: that can end up paying twice because they loop in
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and out a lot of these services. So we're up
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: for reform we're here to help and we want to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: be involved in helping get it right.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: That very problem you're talking about, those people who are
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: away to my grandma who's on a social housing weightlist,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: which is about twenty thousand people right now. If you
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: do what the government is talking about doing and make
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the tenure, put a time limit, a time cap on
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the tenure, do you not cycle through more? Therefore that
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: weight list will come down. Therefore Grandma gets a bed sooner.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, look, I get the logic. However, the first
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: step onto the next rung of the ladder is a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: very very big steps. So nineteen eighty six, home ownership
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: owner occupying households in New Zealand peaked and since then
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: we've been in a very very steep decline. And so
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: we need pathways, viable pathways for people to step onto
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: if we're going to get them out of there, rather
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: than paying twice and having them cycling back. So yeah, good,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: good theory. It's all about the practic us in the
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: level of engagement that we get because we've got twenty
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: six thousand houses that we look after in the community sector,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and we've got a lot of knowledge, a lot of
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: experience and we're up for helping get this right, Paul.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: For the private rentals, the prices now are cheaper than
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: they were two three years ago, right, So does that
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: mean does that mean is that inclusive of the lower
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: quarter l the lowest price rentals are also cheaper than
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: they were three years ago? Or is it just the average?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's the average. There's high degrees of variability. I mean,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you're still seeing significant rent increases in places like Queenstown
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Lakes District. I know that's unusual. In general, rents have
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: come down and that is the broad pattern at the moment.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: But things go up, things go down. So we're really
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: talking about structural with the stuff that was announced yesterday
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: is a significant structural reform of the social housing system
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: and we agree that it's time that we had to
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: look at it because it's not working very well.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: We need to fix it, all right, Good stuff, Paul Gilbert,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Chief Executs of Social Housing. Out there.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Oh for more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: live to News Talks.
• 4:06
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• 4:09
  Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.