The state of emergency housing in six charts

Emergency housing under the coalition compared to previous government

Let’s look at the past seven years. At the peak, around 15,000 applications were being granted in mid-2020 for emergency housing under the Labour Government. This was just as the Covid-19 pandemic began to ramp up, and at the time the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) said this impacted the surge in emergency housing grants.

Since 2022, grants have steadily declined overall. During this time, the number of applications that were declined remained relatively the same, between 200-300 each month.

The decline ratebecame more rapid after the 2023 election that put the coalition in government. And for the first time in five years, the number of declined applications began to rise from the end of 2024.

Today, the margin between granted and declined applications is vastly narrower than it was under the previous Labour Government. Between 1200-1500 applications are granted each month, and between 600-700 are declined.

The minister in charge of emergency housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka, has blamed the previous Labour Government for contributing to the large-scale use of emergency housing, which, according to him, had become “one of the biggest public policy failures in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand”.

National campaigned on reducing the use of emergency housing in the 2023 election and, about a year later, introduced new eligibility rules that tightened access to the support. This included allowing MSD staff to reject an application if they believed someone had caused or contributed to their own needs.

Labour said National was creating a “false pretence” that demand was decreasing and the Government is “trying to kid the country in to thinking that this is an area they can save money because the need isn’t there”.

Potaka has always insisted that people in “genuine need” would be able to access emergency housing and says most of those who are declined are offered or referred to alternative forms of support, such as transitional housing or bond support to access a private rental.

The Ministry of Social Development said that around 70% of people who are declined emergency housing are provided with another type of support.

Asked about the remaining 30%, Potaka said: “Some of those people may well be in housing now, some of them may not be”.

How does emergency housing compare around New Zealand?

Emergency housing is a last resort option for people who have nowhere else to stay. The Government usually pays for up to seven nights of accommodation directly to the supplier, such as a motel.

Aaron Hendry, co-founder of Auckland-based agency Kick Back, which helps young people access emergency housing, has long been concerned that the stricter approach to emergency housing is forcing young people to sleep rough.

In September last year, he told the Herald that, almost immediately after the Government narrowed eligibility for emergency housing, youths were being denied emergency housing when other young people in similar circumstances had been accepted a week before the Government’s changes.

Hendry said this prompted him to start contacting motel and hostel owners directly to try to house young people in emergency situations. They pay for this themselves, often from a benefit payment.

In March, the Auditor-General released a report analysing MSD’s processes for reviewing emergency housing applications. Social welfare staff needed clearer guidelines for how serious someone’s behaviour had to be to be declined under the new criteria of “causing or contributing to one’s needs”.

Over the 12-month review period, five applications were identified as being wrongly declined and were later overturned.

The report acknowledged that MSD staff might not always make the right decision but stressed “the consequences for the person who is declined support are potentially significant, and they will likely have few other options”.

There were more households staying in emergency housing in the Waikato (108) in March than any other region. In some regions, more applications are being denied than granted. MSD said that generally, the more transitional housing a region had, the less emergency housing places it tended to occupy.

For example, in the Auckland metro area, the number of applications that are being declined, which outstrip granted applications, reflected “a good supply of transitional housing in Auckland which is a better and stable alternative to emergency housing”.

The map below compares the latest emergency housing data for March 2026 with the same month in 2023, about seven months before the coalition Government came to power. It shows the biggest decline in the number of households in emergency housing was at Wellington.

In the capital, there were 399 households in emergency housing in March 2023. In March this year, there were 18, a decrease of 95.5%.

Who needs emergency housing?

Everyone tends to agree that emergency housing is not an ideal environment for anyone, particularly young people. There were 471 households in emergency housing in March, and among these, there were 417 children. MSD data showed the most common age range (30%) of the primary applicant for emergency housing was between 30-39.

Māori are hugely over-represented in the emergency housing system: 61% of the primary applicants for emergency housing in March 2026 were Māori.

Researcher and data analyst Dr Karaitiana Taiuru said this was a reflection of how Māori had long been let down by the housing system.

These figures would reflect the impacts of colonisation and land disenfranchisement (through dubious land sales and government legislation designed to alienate Māori from their land from the 1800s), as well as more contemporary instances of discrimination against Māori in the housing system.

“I remember my parents were talking about how hard it was to get a rental. My Pākehā mum married my dad so she had the surname Taiuru but she had to use her maiden name to be able to get viewings,” Taiuru said.

“She said one day she rang one place [using her married surname] and was told it was rented out. A few minutes later, she rang back using her maiden name and got a booking.”

How much does emergency housing cost?

One way of measuring the cost of emergency housing to New Zealand is through the value of emergency housing special needs grants.

In the March 2026 quarter, there were 4065 emergency housing special needs grants issued, a 11.6% increase (423) on the same quarter in 2025.

The value of these grants was $9.7m, a 4.9% decrease from the same period in 2025, and an 88% decrease on the value of grants in March 2023, before the coalition came to power.

Karen Hocking, the general manager of enablement at MSD, said emergency housing continued to be available to those who need it.

“It is, however, considered a last resort, and we will work with clients to help them find alternatives that better suit their needs, where it is possible.

“If someone is declined for emergency housing, there are a number of other products we can provide such as transitional housing, support to move to private rentals or support to stay in their current home.”

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.