The Green Party is urging the Government to take its own advice and come up with a long-term plan to build thousands more public homes.
“Our message is clear: now is the time to commit to a long-term plan to build the homes we need,” says Green Party spokesperson for public housing Ricardo Menéndez March.
Speaking at a conference today, the Minister of Housing Megan Woods justified the decision in the Budget to fund only one more year of public housing and called on parties to come up with their own plan to build more homes.
“Everyone should have a warm, dry, safe place to call home. The government should commit to making the long-term investment we need to meet Aotearoa’s housing demand.
“Kāinga Ora manages around 65,000 homes – but there is still a waiting list of 24,000 people who need a decent place to live. The Government must keep accelerating the building programme, so that every single person is able to live in a warm, dry, affordable home.
“In this year’s Budget the Government could only commit to just one more year of funding for the Kāinga Ora build programme.
“Rather than setting out the government’s own long-term plan, the Minister today challenged other parties to come to the table with their own proposals.
“Let’s be very clear about this: the Green Party is the only party who have been consistently saying that we need to see a more ambitious building programme for public housing.
“We have said time and time again that Kāinga Ora should be able to invest more, and Kāinga Ora needs to stop selling land to private developers and instead develop it to build enough public housing.
“With more Green MPs in the next government, we can make sure we deliver the long term solutions to housing that Aotearoa needs,” says Ricardo Menéndez March.
