Urgent community builds needed to stop unaffordable rent hikes

Bold solutions are needed as we face the largest monthly rent increase in New Zealand history, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today.

According the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), the end of the COVID-19 rent freeze has seen rents increase dramatically across the country. The Wellington region has been hit the hardest by the increases and is now more expensive to live in than Auckland.

“The Government should be looking to increase the supply of affordable community rental homes and ‘build to rent’ developments, for example by extending Kāinga Ora’s ‘buying off the plans’ underwrite to community and iwi housing providers,” says Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson.

“People who rent deserve affordable, secure, quality homes to live in. Government must do more to stop rampant property speculation and the growing hardship that this is causing for people who just need a home to live in.

“The COVID-19 lockdown has disproportionately affected those people who already couldn’t afford rent. If this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that the systems put in place to govern our lives can be quickly changed for our collective good.

“As a country, we have the power to fix this. Without urgent action, we risk entrenching these inequalities for generations.”

ENDS

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