The report acknowledges MSD staff might not always make the right decision, but stressed \u201cthe consequences for the person who is declined support are potentially significant, and they will likely have few other options\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome housing advocacy and community organisations who work with people who have been declined emergency housing were concerned that some people are returning to overcrowded homes, couches, night shelters, cars, or the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocacy groups and community organisations told the Auditor-General they were concerned the increase in rejected applications was due to these new criteria, leading \u201cmany people in need [to] now believe that there is no point in applying and are at risk of becoming or remaining homeless\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome housing advocacy and community organisations that we spoke with were particularly concerned that this specific line of questioning was not being applied fairly or consistently and that it is being used to withhold support.\u201d<\/p>\n
MSD could also provide \u201cbetter guidance\u201d on when to consider whether mental health or dependency issues might be a factor in someone needing housing urgently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are judgments that can have serious consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
MSD agreed with the Auditor-General that it needed to improve its guidance and was \u201cprioritising this as part of its normal service improvement processes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Karen Hocking, MSD\u2019s general manager of group enablement, said the agency welcomed the report and \u201cwe know there are areas where we can improve\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased to see the Auditor-General has noted there are clear pathways for people to access housing assistance and that agencies are generally collaborating well to address immediate housing need.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry had recently updated guidance for front-line staff when speaking with clients about emergency housing and was \u201cconsidering options to further strengthen the oversight of emergency housing declines\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to work with our colleagues at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) to provide advice to ministers on how best to address the Auditor-General\u2019s recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Auditor-General says MSD could benefit from expanding its current process of reviewing decisions to include a review of a decline while the person is present and before a final decision is communicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would help provide greater assurance that its staff\u2019s decision-making is consistent and reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency said it has been focusing on ensuring more consistency in decision-making between regions and sites.<\/p>\n
MSD data provided to the Auditor-General showed that of 58 decisions to decline emergency housing over 12 months between 2024 and 2025, five were overturned after being reviewed.<\/p>\n
\u201cReviewing all initial decisions to decline support would also help ensure that all of a person\u2019s options have been exhausted and that people are connected with other services or given helpful advice before they are turned away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The report acknowledges MSD staff might not always make the right decision, but stressed \u201cthe consequences for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[534,96939,112460,31943,57023,10709,146176,25204,27914,184616,15974,71,7237,51249,23801,5838,2959,3339,5971,117,111,10511,43,139,69,90,384,7676,26343,312,1072,10536,1516,1361,8238,2443],"class_list":["post-347093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amid","tag-applying","tag-auditorgeneral","tag-clarified","tag-clearer","tag-concerns","tag-criteria","tag-declining","tag-denying","tag-deterring","tag-emergency","tag-from","tag-governments","tag-grounds","tag-guidelines","tag-help","tag-high","tag-housing","tag-need","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newest","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-people","tag-rates","tag-rejection","tag-says","tag-social","tag-someone","tag-staff","tag-that","tag-under","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}